Cupid and Psych
by Atomdancerrr
Summary: Shawn helps a "Lunatic" whose convinced he's Cupid! Friends in VERY high places so Shawn REALLY starts having visions! Also crosses Matlock, Robin Hood, Wonderful Life, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, & what Herman Munster to Cthulhu would be!


**We know ABC and others are wise enough to consider this and all fanfiction as adds for their wonderful ****works****. **

**Cupid and Psych**

**by**

**Elizabeth Hensley 8-)**

**and**

**Dunnywater **

**Chapter one**

_It had been over five years since this god had flown!_

Trevor Pierce who knew with complete certainty in his deepest heart of hearts, no matter _who_ thought he was crazy that he was really Cupid, the Greco -Roman god of Love, sat in the window seat with his nose pressed up against the glass, gazing at the clouds wishing intensely that the psychic veil/mental force field had not been placed over his mind! _There would have been a time when he could __have seen members of his family flying around up here, and fairies and Angels and the occasional Cherubim and the even rarer Seraphim. But now all he saw were Birds, Clouds, and the occasional other Aeroplane. _

_But the clouds at least were very pretty. He knew they were only water vapor. But they looked like caverns and mountains and even cities in the air! _

His beautiful Psychiatrist who was also his Therapist, Dr. Claire McCrae interrupted his thoughts, "Wasn't it nice of my Boss, Dr. Greeley to buy you a ticket so you could come too, Trevor?"

The love god smiled a bit ruefully. "You wouldn't have gone if I hadn't."

Claire nodded, "That's true. I can't leave you alone to your own devices for a week! You'd get in _so_ much trouble! But I didn't have to go to this medical conference. So it really was very kind of him!" She got a puzzled look, "And I don't even understand his insistence that I go! Yes it's about a topic I'm interested in and it will make me better at it: The use of therapy and nutrition to argument medication in the treatment of heavy psychosis." She stared at him thoughtfully. "I wonder if there is any supplement that would help _you?_"

Trevor laughed, "No way, Claire Bear! I'm so fit vitamins could take me!"

Claire smiled at that, then added, "Dr. Greeley hardly believes in therapy. He wouldn't have me doing it with you if anything else had worked to even half reign you in! By the time I was called in he was desperate to figure out some way to control you before you completely disrupted the B Wing beyond repair with your singalongs and your strip poker games and your practical jokes!"

She laughed.

_That was music to Cupid's ears. He hadn't heard her laugh in such a long time!_

"So why are we here?" She added.

"The Rapid Expansion Theory." Trevor suggested, his eyes twinkling, "I hesitate to call it 'The Big Bang theory' when sound does not travel in the vacuum of space. And they diss Moses for being poetic! After all, 'yom' means 'time period' too not just 'day' and 'morning' means 'beginning' and 'evening' means 'ending' in ancient Hebrew."

Claire nodded, "Good Point! And Dr. Greeley _did something else for me. He called me in his office __unexpectedly and I thought I had done something he didn't approve of. Or you had. Instead he __handed me this form. I check off a lot of it because it's got yes and no blanks. It's to be my new way of reporting each week about you and it's going to save me hours and hours of time! I realize now I had been sort of overdoing my weekly reports about you. Want to see one of them?"_

Trevor nodded, "Oh I wouldn't miss it for this trip!"

Claire reached in her purse and pulled out a piece of paper.

Trevor took it and looked at it. He started belly laughing.

The form said,

"Has Trevor been arrested this week?

No. _

Yes._

If Yes, Explain.

Has Trevor matched any couples this week?

No._

Yes._

If yes. Explain.

If there are new You Tube videos or additions to his website, list urls here. If none leave blank.

State wise and/or funny Trevorisms here. Be brief as possible.

Has Trevor done anything, cute, funny, clever or kind this week?

No._

Yes._

If 'Yes' state them here. Attach extra paper if necessary but only if absolutely necessary.

Trevor laughed. "For all his fearing I'm going to get violent he kind of knows me too, doesn't he?"

Claire smiled and nodded.

Trevor commented. "It was kind of Felix to let me go too. I wonder why he let me go on such short notice?

(Cupid didn't know it but Dr. Greeley had called Felix and paid him three thousand dollars to let his best bar promoter and Customer-draw go for a week!)

The Stewardess came then and offered them their choice of beverages. Trevor looked up and grinned at her, "Bring me orange juice. Lots and lots OJ! 'Cause we're going to Ca li for ni A!"

As they headed South the Pilot kept up quite a patter and flow of interesting factoids, "Folks we are flying over the Grand Canyon now."

Cupid looked down on it thinking of his little godling days when he and his siblings, Rhodos, Herophilus, Hermaphroditus, Priapus, Aneas and then finally, latter, little kid brother Antheros had played in it, flying slalom style among the mesas and twists and turns, outracing Eagles and startling quite a few Angels who had not been expecting little godlings to be on the loose.

Claire asked, "What do you think of the Grand Canyon, Trevor?"

He grinned mischievously, "It GORGEous!"

Claire groaned.

So did the Folks in the seat behind them!"

A bit later the the Pilot said cheerfully, "Folks we are flying over the London Bridge now. There are actually more than one London Bridge obviously, but this is the one that was built in 1831. It was brought to the United States in 1967 by a wealthy Billionaire named Robert P. McCulloch. They made a diagram and numbered each brick and took it apart and brought it over and put it back together, each brick going where it was supposed to go. Once it was reconstructed they ran water under it."

Trevor said thoughtfully. "Sort of like an early transporter or pearl. Every hair of your head is numbered and not only that but every tiny piece of the quarks in every hair."

Claire wished she had her yellow pad. "What's a pearl?"

Trevor explained, "A pearl is the device on a side of a keep like Olympus or New Jerusalem has or any other keep that translates the virtual bodies inside into physical flesh bodies that can leave the keep and if necessary can also transport them to places just as transporters do on Star Trek or Star gate. It can work in reverse too. It can translate physical, flesh bodies into virtual bodies that can enter the keep and also beam them up from places."

Claire sighed, "But Trevor, transporters are Science Fiction. They are no more real than your delusions of being from Olympus."

Trevor just smiled lovingly at his deluded Psychiatrist!" "You forget Time circles due to General Relativity, Claire Bear! We gods and Olympus and New Jerusalem and transporters and all that good stuff were created by you Mortals using Science far in the Future so we're plenty real enough. In fact you can prove this. Pinch me!"

Claire grinned a toothy grin, "I think I _will!_" She did! Hard!

"Owwww!" He glared at her. "Not _that _hard!

She smiled sweetly her tongue firmly in her cheek. "Well I'll be! You _are _real! And all this time I thought _I _was hallucinating!"

Trevor laughed and rubbed his arm where she had pinched him. "At least you are getting your sense of humor back!"

Suddenly Trevor said mischievously. "Look Claire! A flying saucer! In fact there's another and another!"

Claire groaned, "Now you _are_ hallucinating!"

Trevor grinned, "No, look!" He pointed under her coffee cup and then under other Passenger's coffee cups. "We have a whole fleet of them up here!"

Claire rolled a magazine up into a tube and whacked Trevor over the head with it!

Trevor protested playfully."Hey! Are you allowed to hit a patient?"

Claire grinned sweetly. "In this case it was necessary for MY mental health!"

Trevor grinned, "I'm supposed to be the crazy one but notice I have my seat belt fastened and you don't!"

"Whoops!" Claire's face reddened. She quickly fastened hers. A few of the other Passengers who could not help overhearing most of this also tittered and did so too.

Trevor leaned back and stared at the clouds outside his window. "Good old Sir Isaac Newton! 'Any object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.' We sure want the objects to be our laps and the outside force to be our seat belts and not the objects to be our heads and the outside force to be the backs of the seats in front of us!"

Claire grimaced in agreement to that but added, "I suppose now you are going to tell me you helped Sir Isaac Newton come up with the three laws of motion?"

Trevor shook his head. "No. Actually no one in my family did."*

Claire's jaw dropped, "I'm amazed! You actually admit for once you and your ephemeral family had nothing to do with the course of "Mortal history?" She made quote marks with her fingers.

Trevor nodded, "The only time I helped little Isaac was when he was a Kid and he was being harmed horribly by this bully. I whispered in his ear that he COULD take him on and win! And he did! He whupped him soundly and that raised his self esteem and lead to him doing better in his academic studies too! For once what my Father literally pounded into me had value, Claire! Isaac has Asperger's syndrome you know just like my Uncle Vulcan."

_For what had to be the thousandth time Claire rolled her eyes to the Heavens and prayed to Whoever Really Is In Charge for help with 'Cupid'! _But she was grinning as she did so.

The Folk in the seat behind them were getting an ear full! But at times they were having a hard time telling who was crazy and who was the the Shrink! They of course did figure out Trevor was indeed the Patient but that both of them were crazy and were glad they'd found each other!

*Author's note. This is because any good Couch Potato worth his salt knows Doctor Who helped Newton write the Three laws of Motion instead of course! He sat in the Apple Tree above him and tossed apples down on top of him. When he looked up and asked him to clear out of his Tree the good Doctor jumped down and explained the whole thing to him over tea.

Landing in Santa Barbara

The landing went smooth. Not even any crying Babies. Claire was delighted to notice that Trevor was not a White Knuckler as many Mental Patients are. He thoroughly enjoyed the landing just as he had the whole plane ride from start to finish. As they were slowing down Trevor commented to the Stewardess. "Wow! I sure miss flying!"

The Stewardess had been overhearing bits and snatches of their conversation. She asked in sympathy. "They took away your Pilot's license because of your mental condition?"

Trevor frowned, "No! My family took away my wings when they cast me down from Olympus!"

Startled, the Stewardess scurried away. Claire wanted to dive under her seat in embarrassment! _But she had to admit to herself Trevor was fun!_

While sitting on the Tarmac waiting to deplane Claire said, "Trevor I am not too terribly worried about you here. Santa Barbara is a pretty loopy place. You'll fit right in! But I want you to promise not to try and match anybody up while we are here."

Cupid spit in his right hand, rubbed it against his other one and then raised it. He made the Vulcan salute and said seriously, "I promise my Claire Bear I will not try to match any couples while I am in Santa Barbara."

She stared at him in surprise, "Well! That was easy! I was expecting an argument!

He said, "Claire you need a vacation! And that means from having to supervise me doing _that_ too! And you know, I do too! I've been at it now for over five years! For a couple of weeks I am going to just relax and enjoy being a normal Mortal and not even try and think about who goes well with whom."

Claire felt herself getting lighter! "You know you are right! And I didn't even have to suggest it in a therapy session! You came up with it on your own!"

Trevor beamed.

Their captive but not reluctant Audience resisted the temptation to clap!

As they gathered their overhead luggage the Man behind them taped Claire on the shoulder, "Excuse me Ma'am but I have to make the New York to Santa Barbara Direct four times a year. I just have to thank you and your patient here for making what is usually an awfully boring trip for me really fun! The two of you were better than any movie!"

Trevor spoke up and handed him his card, "Check out my web page. I have lots of our sessions I secretly taped uploaded there!'

Claire, sighed and protested knowing full well she might as well be asking Trevor's Uncle Aeolus the wind-god not to blow. "Trevor That was a violation of MY privacy at least! Sacredly taping our sessions and uploading them without my permission!"

Trevor looked down at her, grinned defiantly. "Why? Is there anything shameful about being in therapy?"

"No!" Claire's face showed her confusion! "But! Ah!" She wanted to say something but anything she would say would be counter-productive! _ What __do you do when Patients are __**too**__ unashamed of their mental health status and the fact they are getting help? _Again for about the thousandth and ONETH time she rolled her eyes to the Heavens asking the real Higher Power for help with "Cupid!"

**Chapter Two**

**1989**

Young Shawn Spencer and young Burton Guster had wooden swords that they were whacking over the heads of each other. They wore towels as capes and had brooms between their legs as surrogate horses.

"Hey, hey, hey! Boys! What are you doing?" Henry Spencer, Shawn's father, asked as he rushed over to stop the epic battle.

"We're playing knights." Shawn explained. "We wanted to play Robin Hood except that we didn't have a bow and arrows. So we played knights instead."

"But what about the archery set I bought for your birthday last year?" Henry had kneeled down to be at the height of the two 9 year old boys.

Well, Mrs. Phillips, my third grade teacher, took it off me during 'Medieval Week' last month as I tried to shoot an apple off Gus's head."

"Tried?" Asked Henry; though Henry didn't really want to know!

"Tried as in when I fired the arrow; it went straight for the apple, except then it suddenly sailed wide!" Shawn's young voice was full of exasperation. Henry looked at him in disbelief.

"I'm not that bad of a shot. I was full on aiming for Gus's head!"

"What? How come I didn't know about this?" Henry sighed and wiped his hand across what little hair he had left. "Bows and arrows can be very dangerous and should not be used outside of an archery range. And I told you very specifically that the only place you were allowed to use the bow was at the local archery range not at your school!" He paused again. "In the wrong hands, these weapons can kill. I remember one time when we had a maniac running around with a bow..."

Shawn stopped listening.

**2015**

Shawn Spencer had recently pirated the 'Robin Hood' movie staring Russel Crowe. Shawn had found the DVD that his best friend, Burton 'Gus' Guster, had borrowed from a video shop and decided to copy it. He used Gus' computer and everything.

Suddenly Gus burst into the Psych office and headed straight for Shawn. He was not happy!

"Shawn! What are you watching? Is, is that Robin Hood?"

"Why yes it is, Gus."

"I thought you said you took it back to the video shop!"

"I did, Gus. I have a ticket to prove it and everything." He fished the return ticket out of his pocket and happily handed it to Gus. See?"

"Yeah, well look at this!" Gus pulled a fine ticket out of his pocket. "Shawn you are paying the $40.75 fine."

"But Gus!"

"No excuses!"

"Gus!" He gave Gus his best 'wobbie face'. "Fine; give me that! "He tugged the fine out of Gus' hand and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"What are..." Gus was cut off by Shawn shushing him.

*ring ring*

*Hello, this is Will from Santa Barbara Blockbuster video. How may I help you?*

"Hi, Will. May name is Shawn _'wait for iiiiit'_ Spencer. I am a Psychic, and I had a vision detailing that a certain copy of Robin Hood is overdue; even though I returned it."

Shawn heard clacking on a keyboard on the other end.

*Shawn Spencer...Robin Hood...yeah, we had a return of that but there was a problem with the disk.*

Shawn was puzzled, what could be wrong? What was that problem?"

*The disk returned was a pirate, an illegal copy. You still possess the original copy and if you don't return it then I am going to have to get police involved because of copyright laws.*

"Well if it so may happen; I work very closely with the Santa Barbara PD."

*That's great sir; but we really need the disk back.*

"You really feel strongly about this don't you?"

*If I am found with pirates on the premises, then I could be in trouble and be sued.*

"Does that include pirates as is 'argh' and Peter Pan? Because if it does that's a whole lot of movies that will have to walk the plank..."

*Listen, just bring the original copy back and pay the $40 fine and there will be no follow up. Now excuse me, but I have to Customers to tend to...*

With that, the line went dead.

Shawn slowly turned to Gus. "Well, the good news is, is that I did return the DVD. The bad news is that I returned a pirate."

"A pirate? Shawn, were using my work computer to pirate them too, weren't you?"

"I may have accidentally slipped and installed a ripping and burning programme on your computer."

"Slipped, you mean by?"

"Tripping on its power cord and having the disk fly into the drive."

"Well that's just uncanny!"

"Hmmm, I know. But on the flip side, at least we get to copy that awesome Xanadu movie with Olivia Newton-John special features collectors edition!"

"What!" Screamed Shawn and Gus as they bumped their fists like they had been doing for years.

Shawn and Gus were best friends. They had been since they were practically Babies. They had met in a playgroup and instantly hit it off. Hitting off literally as they managed to pull down the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. It was quite an accomplishment for two 3 year old boys.

But those two, 3 year old boys only got bigger, they never matured much they just grew taller. Of course there were bumps in the road, in that friendship and there had been many words that both wished they had never spoke. But despite their differences and their similarities; they always made up and forgave each other.

Gus was angry at Shawn. Shawn knew it too. But Shawn also knew that Gus wouldn't stay angry at him for long. He was after all going to get new fake copies of the special collectors edition of Xanadu!

Gus was annoyed that he had to drive to the shop to take Shawn. Even though Shawn had a motorbike, he never seemed to be riding it.

"Look; my bike is currently indisposed. It's currently not running."

"That's crap; you just wanted me for moral support."

Shawn stopped in his tracks and bowed his head considering. "True. But not entirely truthful my friend."

"Shawn." Gus stopped too.

"Gus; don't be the Puffer Fish that killed the Dolphin!"

As Gus stayed to try to figure out Shawn's latest analogy; Shawn rushed ahead into the video shop.

The inside was dingy. Lit up movie posters hung from the wall, big arse TV screens relooped the trailers of current DVD releases, while wall to wall book shelves full of DVDs, tapes and CDs balanced precariously on neat, but densely populated shelves arranged methodically on the creaky blue carpeted floor.

The air was hot and draining. White noise saturated and threatened to consume the air.

It was very crowded today.

Shawn and Gus nonchalantly dropped the real DVD into the after midnight return box. Shawn then went through the security scanner and started cruising the shelves. Gus couldn't believe it.

He tried to grab Shawn but missed. "Shawn? What are you doing?"

Shawn put down the box of Finding Nemo back onto the shelf; he had been reading the back of it. He went on to pick up the movie beside it and refused to look back at Gus. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"We have a fine we should pay, before never coming back here." Gus stated very matter of factly.

"Oh will you look at that!" He held up a claymation 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.' "We are definitely borrowing this one!"

"Shawn; no you are not pirating that one!"

"Whose to say I'm pirating this one?" But with the look in Shawn's eye; Gus knew that was exactly what Shawn was planning. "Gus don't be a Person who answers questions all day in the 'Polls&Surveys' section of Yahoo Answers."

"That's you, Shawn."

"I've heard it both ways."

"How; how could you have heard that both ways?"

"Now Shawn remember that I am going to the dentist in the next day or so?" Gus felt around his mouth with his tongue.

"Really? Why?" Shawn scratched his chin as he put down a Mary Poppins DVD.

"Remember that raw sugar contest we were having last month?" He said it with a hint of frustration, especially since Shawn picked up and showed him a movie called "Being Brave!" that was all about being brave at the dentist.

"Yeah, and if l remember correctly, l pwn'd you to next Sunday." He put Being Brave back and showed him a Power Rangers DVD.

Gus shook his head, both at Shawn's DVD choice and the statement Shawn had given him. "First of all, I won, second of all - now my teeth are full of cavities."

"Oh you poor man!" He put back Power Rangers and showed him Hannah Montana.

"You have to be kidding!" Gus cried in exasperation at Shawn. "Put the movie down! Now. So I need you to pick me up since l won't be able to drive."

"Are you really giving me a car?" Shawn flashed him a daredevil look.

"No. I want you to pick me up because I might be a little unable to drive."

"Oh okay. Well. My final offer is Pingu - the claymation penguin that goes "Nook Nook!""

"I hear that!" They stepped away holding the Pingu DVD

Before Shawn could respond; he got distracted by something.

A tall, black haired, dark eyed, man was walking besides an incredibly beautiful Blonde, blue eyed, Woman. The man picked up a plastic skull that had been placed on top of a shelf to celebrate some awful horror flick and intoned with playful solemness. "'Alas poor Yorick! I knew him well!' Based a little on fact, Claire Bear. I did know poor old Yorick, just not well. I helped Will-baby write that line. Not one of his best, but we were in a hurry. There was a deadline coming. I can't believe Hamlet is so well received when we wrote so many I like so much better!"

The Blonde Lady said in an exasperated tone of voice. "You can't have known someone who lived that long ago. That is all in your mind!'

The man cheerfully disagreed. "Sure I did! 'There are more things on Heaven and Earth then are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.' I helped Will-baby write that line too!"

The Beautiful Blonde rolled her eyes to the Heavens."Will you concede that William Shakespeare wrote _any _of his own material?"

The big man nodded, "Oh yes. Of course. There is no way I could have done what he did. He is just so very talented!

_*Shawn noticed the man's, 'Unbend Your Bow For a Bit' shirt. He also noticed the Woman's name tag that said Dr. Claire McCrae, Sachs-Gordon._

Shawn approached them;

Gus couldn't believe it!

"Hello. My name is Ichabod Fletchman, Sticky Icky to my boys, but that's neither here nor there."

"Excuse me?"Asked the Blonde Woman.

"This is my Partner Elrond Quarkson." Shawn said, gesturing to Gus.

"I see you are looking for an enticing movie to watch. May I recommend you the 'Spongebob Movie'? It is about a yellow porous sponge who lives in a giant pineapple under the sea." Shawn held up the box with the square yellow sponge on it." I saw it in the cinema like 10 times!"

"You know that's right." Muttered 'Elrond'." What!"

The tall man said. "You know; I remember when they used to screen that up on Olympus. But my father hated it so it was banned from the mountain."

The Lady said, "Really? What's wrong with Spongebob? I've watched the occasional episode."

The man sniggered and just about doubled over with laughter.

She shot him daggers. "Well it's relaxing to watch something that sweet once in a while. No one ever gets killed! No one is ever really mean to one to one another. It's soothing and life affirming!"

The man shrugged, grinning. "if you say so, Claire!"

Shawn said with his usual boyish charm. "So, Dr. McCrae; have I fully persuaded you and 'Cupid' here to borrow this awesome movie. Or will I have to get more creative?"

Claire was shocked. "How do you know my name?"

The man wanted to know too. _This weird, albeit funny, guy had just guessed his secret, well not so secret, identity! _"Uncle Mercury?"

To Shawn and Gus; the above questions were fired pretty much simultaneously.

Shawn explained. "I am a psychic and I don't think I am your uncle. That's unless my dad lied to me and he had another brother. This is awkward; I am confused..."

"You're psychic?" Asked the Doctor.

"Yes I am. My name's actually Shawn Spencer, the above name just kind of came out."

Claire asked skeptically. "How long have you been a psychic for?"

"My whole..." He looked at Gus for confirmation.

Gus complied. "His whole life he has been psychic. But I am the real brains behind this operation.. "He gave Claire a kind of crazy sexually implying look complete with eyebrow wiggle.

"Come on Gus; really? You are trying to pick up a Psychiatrist with_ her __P__atient,_ a guy _twice the size of both of us_ standing next to her?"

While Claire looked on partly amazed, partly horrified; 'Cupid' took over. "So you're psychic are you, yet you are not my Uncle hey? Prove it mister!"

Claire was glad that her Patient was looking at this scenario with skepticism. _This may make him more aware of his own problems with reality._

Shawn gazed around for something to amaze his little audience. He put his fingers up to his temples and began to rub them. He half closed his eyes.

_*His eyes gazed to one of the methodically placed DVD shelves and noticed that one of the castors on the carpet was quite flimsy. He also a man walking with a big box of boxes and Shawn knew he was going to put the boxes on the shelves. _He said authoritatively."Those shelves, the ones with the thrillers, are about to get dumped."

The other three turned their heads just as the shelves came crashing down spilling movies everywhere!

Claire opened her mouth in amazement! _The __majority of the time; all of her '__'psychic'__ patients __couldn't__ have predicted that. Well none had ever predicted anything before. This was a first! But Claire knew not to get ahead of herself. She was supposed to disprove __people's__ delusions; not start one of her own!_

For Cupid though; _He __wasn't__ quite sure how to react!_ _He had been pretty much de-powered but not to the point that if one of his family was around helping this Mortal predict things he would not be aware of it. No one of his kind was around. He was pretty sure of that. But somehow this strange Mortal had known the shelf was going to fall! Knowing __Claire's__ names of course, that had been a parlor trick. He had read Claire __Bear's__ name tag. He had done the same kind of thing pretending to know his name psychically too from having_ overheard his _talking about his father being the god of war thus making him most likely Cupid even though Pops had other kids. But the shelf was more problematic. But he had watched Houdini. He'd figure it out in time!_

Meanwhile from Shawn's point of view: *_While Trevor had his back to them; Shawn was able to read the __man's__ name on the plane ticket still tucked in the __man's__ back pocket. Shawn also noticed that the man saved all the romantic movies first and then the tacky romantic comedies. The war documentaries were the last. He remembered also that his and the Woman had not been holding hands. He also noticed how she treated him; like someone who needed careful watching. He also remembered what the fellow had said about his father banning Sponge Bob from 'Olympus, and his Uncle being, "Mercury." Inwardly Shawn giggled. My God! This fellow d__oes__ think he __i__s a god!_

Meanwhile from Cupid's point of view_: _S_ure enough! I recognize the body language. Here it comes!_

Shawn with his hands to the side of his head exclaimed dramatically, "Your name is Trevor Pierce and you name is Doctor Claire McCrae. You are his Doctor and you are her patient. You come from New York. And you, my man, have a big interest in love! Cupid is not just a nickname! You believe you are the original Cupid; the Greek God of Love!"

Trevor stared at Shawn. "How are you getting all this information? You aren't getting it from my family or anyone in the realm I come from. I would know! They took most of my powers and omnipresence away from me but not completely. I still have some vestigial ability. I would know if you anyone from that realm were communicating with you. And they aren't! But you do know things! Hmmm." Trevor put his hand on his chin and walked around Shawn, his coal-dark eyes twinkling. "Ah! You know I am Cupid because you overheard us talking and called Trevor Pierce from my plane ticket. It is sticking out of my back pocket and you read it when my back was turned. You know she is Dr. Claire McCrae because, duh! Dr Prim and Proper here is all dressed up for her med conference and she already has on a name tag! She puts one on ahead of time so she never forgets a name by being distracted by having to fool with putting on a name tag while trying to suddenly socialize with someone new at any conference she attends! Claire always tries to be prepared! But I try to be prepared too. That is one way we actually are alike and have no arguments! I saw in omnipresent view all too often what happens when danger is not prepared for ahead of time! It is one reason she worked so hard to help me live out of the hospital; when she realized I had this habit and belief too! Because delusional or not, sirs I am definitely not insane! And being a 3000 plus year old god used to you Mortal's ways of speaking changing often as the wind changes direction I can speak any which way I need to, to fit in, but since I live in New York right now and Dr. McCrae has also for a very long time by Mortal standards, we sure do sound like New Yorkers. 'enry 'iggins would not be impressed with you, sir! Neither would a Friend back home in New York who is also a Linguist. Anyone who can't tell she's a Shrink by the way she acts hasn't been around many and quite frankly, you sir, need one even more than I'm deemed to! And of course if she is the Shrink that makes me the Patient. Lucky me!" Trevor looked like he meant that though with some mixed emotions. (And he did). " As for the shelves falling and you knowing ahead of time; they are flimsy. I think you just got a little lucky there and just surmised they were about to go!"

Both Claire and Gus laughed in surprise. Dr. McCrae clapped with great enthusiasm and put her hands over her head almost like a Pentecostal, the first time she had ever made that gesture at Trevor! (His Greekness was rubbing off on her). "Bravo, Trevor! I didn't know you had it in you! Such a wonderful, grand display of being very grounded in solid reality! I am so very proud of you!"

Eternally the ham, Trevor bowed with a flourish!Then he set to work picking up the fallen movies. As he did so they heard a throat clearing and a shocked voice." What has happened here! They spun around and it was like deju vu all over again! Claire, Gus, Shawn and even Cupid who had seen more Mortals than the rest of them in his much longer life span gasped in amazement.

It was like he had been cloned!

Except for his mouth!

Will was swearing a blue streak as he saw his beloved thrillers tumbled to the filthy floor! _Blasphemy! Disrespect to the sacred media!_ He hoped over the desk and ran to pick them up. But by the time he got there, to his deep gratitude another man was already rescuing them. So Will quickly ran to the back storage room and grabbed a plank of wood to use to keep the shelves up for the time being.

Will exclaimed, "Sorry! These shelves are a little crappy!"

The man stood up and gave Will a sunny grin, That's alright. I straightened it _all_ up!"

Will stood shyly next to the guy. _He felt deep __kinship! Somehow they were the same!_

Then a smaller, more goofier guy came into the picture. "Hey look Trevor, Will, you are like the exact same size! That's completely random, but oh so funny. Look!"

Will looked in amazement as the weird, much shorter man got out a tape measure seemingly out of nowhere and compared them. "See! You both are very, very nigh of being the same!"

Gus couldn't believe it when Shawn pulled out his mini tape measure. In fact it wasn't Shawn's, it was _his._ One of the old advertising perks he had been allowed to give out to Doctors to make them more likely to prescribe their medications instead of the competition's before a law had been passed that forbid those powerful little bribes. So he had hung on to it for that reason. _Shawn must have swiped it off him!_ He grabbed it and yanked Shawn to his side and whispered seriously in his ear. "Shawn, what are you doing!"

"I'm merely comparing their height." Shawn looked at him innocently. "And everything else. Look! They could almost be twins!"

Gus hit him on the arm.

"Oww! What was that for?"

"Stop being an idiot, Shawn!"

"But Gus, that is my specialty!"

Gus looked back at the three looking at them.

The Psychiatrist had a concerned look on her face, her lips tight. _She had a feeling of foreboding, and did not know why!_

Trevor had a somewhat amused, smug look. He elbowed Claire and stage whispered loud enough for everyone else to hear. "Hey! Look Claire Bear! A Mortal who looks almost like moi!"

"_Mortal?__" Will was a little bewildered._

Shawn walked back over and said to the entire crowd the way he always did when pretending to talk to one Person but really wanting everyone's attention. "Now, Will, I know I've known you for all of three weeks after you moved here, but you never said that you had a twin! That's amazing! Gus, here, is my Twin. Well adopted Twin, or Siamese Twin. Something like that. But you two, it's amazing! You are both very tall and, ah! I know what you have. You have that 'mysterious' quality that comes with leading a double life hey? Will, the "DVD Man"! By day he is video shop clerk, but at night he turns into the Awesome Audio Avenger! Let me here that! Booyaa! Whooooo!"

Will turned and left quickly, his face red.

Shawn looked around at everyone. "What, what did I _say?"_

Gus put his hand on Shawn's shoulder and repeated. "You are an _idiot,_ Shawn!"

"No! But look!. Look at the similarities between Triple A and Trevor here? Both tall! Dark! Handsome!" He flashed a smile at Trevor, "and who knows? Maybe Love here has an identity crisis currently".

Trevor stared at Shawn as he had never stared at a Mortal before, as if he had never seen such a _being_ before! "Ah thanks, Shawn. That is very, umm, kind of you." Let's go, Claire." He tugged the Doctor's arm. And they both hurried out the door. _Claire's feeling of anxiety had transferred to her __P__atient!_

Shawn yelled after the pair. "But wait! You haven't rented anything yet!"

Gus shook his head in bewilderment. "You know Shawn, you are right about those two. They do have a lot of physical similarities, but I have no idea why you said that to them." You just made them both very uncomfortable, though I'm not exactly sure why I admit."

Shawn stopped listening to Gus and focused on Will, who while walking, stopped and straightened up the "Robin Hood" movies. He then turned around and gave Shawn a look that sent a chill down his spine! _Despite "Cupid" being so out of touch with reality he was so obviously kind and gentle that he was actually soothing. But there was something very disconcerting about Will!_

"Let's go Gus, I need to talk to my dad!"

They left quickly...without paying the fine.

As they walked back to his car Gus grinned, "You know that man was more immature than you are!"

Shawn snorted. "No way!

Gus grinned, "Yes way!"

Shawn shook his head, "Nonsense! I could out-mature him in a funeral parlor and dressed in a tux even if he was dressed up as Ronald McDonald at the same time! No one can out mature moi even on my dullest days and I am at the height of my powers right now! Wooga wooga wooga!"

A startled little old lady gave them a frightened look.

Gus reassured her, "Don't worry Ma'am he's harmless and I'm taking him home right away for his medication."

Gus and Shawn looked at one another and they burst out laughing._ Friends forever!_

As they walked to their hotel Claire was absolutely disgusted, "Can you imagine that charlatan! The nerve! And this isn't even a red light district! Where are the Santa Barbara Police and why aren't they stopping this guy from running loose? I guess he saw I am a Doctor and thought he could scam us out of some money some way!"

But Trevor was far wiser than a Mortal. He looked down at his pretty Shrink, shook his gentle head, smiled sadly and said, "He may be a fake psychic Claire Bear, but there is something kind in him! I am still allowed to be a little psychic for real. I sensed that! And some reason our paths are supposed to cross other than just so he could entertain us for a few seconds and I could humiliate him! We will meet him again in our little trip here and I am a tad worried about it!'

Trevor walked on ahead of Claire, frowning. He was worried about the Future! _It nagged at him. Something was going to happen, something not what he was expecting on a vacation trip!_

She stared after him, "Trevor I am a bit worried about you! Forget what I said about you suddenly being more grounded in reality than you were! You are getting worse! A tad psychic indeed! There is no such thing!"

"Trevor" sighed, "Claire if I told you I was going to the 7/11 around the corner from the bar and was coming back in a few minutes with a Coke and some Krispy Creams and you went and told Felix, 'Trevor is going to the 7/11. He will be back in a few minutes with a Coke and some Krispy Creams.' I suspect Felix would believe you, would he not? And hardly be surprised if I came in a few minutes later with my mouth covered in powdered sugar?"

Claire nodded, "I am quite sure of that. You come to session every Thursday with your mouth covered in powdered sugar anyway! It is the most convincing proof you are a god you don't put on weight and your cholesterol remains in a healthy range the way you eat!"

Trevor laughed, "Well if I did that then I would have just made you a psychic, Psyche! Because a god gave you a prediction about his future behavior and you proclaimed that to your fellow Mortals and behold! It came to pass!"

Claire shrugged, "But what is so fantastic and hard to believe about anyone simply telling someone their future plans? 

Trevor stabbed the air with his finger, "Exactly! Now you've got it! So if my Grandfather Zeus tells a certain so-called Mortal he loves 'I'm making it rain on first street next Thursday at five P:M.' So when it does, what's the big deal?"

Claire sighed. _She was usual failing to bring Trevor back to reality because reality was failing to cooperate with her! It was as it almost always did, cooperating with 'Cupid' instead! She decided to try another tactic._ "By the way didn't you tell me once your Grandfather is only a local weather god and not in charge of the entire Planet as many modern Mortals mistakenly think? So how does a Greek weather god who at the most ended up also managing Italy due to the Romans were lazy and stole the Greeks gods just as they stole most of everything else, end up managing the weather in New York anyway? I admit you are incredibly accurate with your predictions but what is the logical explanation for that!"

Trevor grinned, "Emigration, Claire Bear! All the Greeks in Astoria, even more now than live in Greece plus all the hoards of wonderful Italians in New York have eased out the original Native American elementary spirits. Many of them have moved to Hollywood in California and guide special effects now for living. That's why those are getting better and better! Their goal is to take over Cyberspace someday due to CGI giving them excess and give it weather! Yes Claire! Scary but true! And that leaves my Grandfather mishandling this area now. Sorry about that!"

Claire sighed. "But that doesn't explain how you keep knowing that it is going to rain on me in any given second, or hail or snow! You _are_ accurate and it's uncanny!"

Trevor grinned, "The secret to that is your Mother."

Claire stared at Trevor in surprise.

"Your Mother was the one who clued me in on the secret as to how to do that."

Claire stared at her patient in mouth opened amazement. "My Mother!"

Trevor nodded, "Weather is block by block. It can rain on Second Street and be dry on first but of course I can easily find out ahead of time what my Grandfather's plans are. Or even some other god's planned schedule if I wanted to. Because Uncle Mercury can just go ask them and find out and then tell me my Grandfather's schedule if (Mortal miracle!) Medusa sold something on eBay and was generous, so he has Euros for cell phone minutes or if he manages to pierce the psychic veil, slash, mental force field placed over me as it is over most Mortals when I was cast down. But usually who knows where any given Mortal will be in the Future at any given second other than the Big Guy? You do have free will! Aye! There's the rub! Even the Big Guy only knows what you are going to do ahead of time because He has incredible amounts of RAM, has been around the entire Wheel of Time and then some and just remembers where so and so was at any given moment in their lifetime, not the ability to know the Future but the ability to remember the Past. Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day has that correct! So my ability to know where YOU are at any given moment in time was the key to my being able give you your own personal weather report. Your Mother clued me in on that!"

Claire's face was priceless!

Trevor just laughed, "Oh Claire! It was so tempting! I could have had you believing me here! But it would have been for the wrong reason! It is just you are so darn predictable! You follow the same routine exactly day in and day out with the only differences being by what day of the week it is. Your Mother has been observing you just as closely as my family has been watching my Grandfather and each other all these thousands of years! Family just does that to family I guess, Monkeys, Chimps, Mortal Humans, gods. The whole Primate chain just does that. Captain Kirk is right. 'Everybody's Human!' So she gave me your schedule down to the second, every day of the week and I gave it to Uncle Mercury and from that he can tell me if it's going to rain or snow or sleet on you and how big those hail stones will be at any given moment, as long as you stick to your schedule. If you got the sudden urge to move to Florida and did the incredibly unClaire like thing and actually did so I guarantee that light flurry of snow predicted on tenth street at two o:clock December 18 next Winter will NOT follow you down to Miami beach! In fact coming here throws things off. I have no idea what kind of weather you will have today other than it's Santa Barbara in the Spring so I am betting 'sunny and beautiful with a little afternoon rain!' Need I even bother to point out I didn't figure that much out from divine connections?"

Claire laughed nervously and thought to herself._ He isn't getting it! I still __don't__ know how he knows what the weather is like ahead of time block by block in New York! But __**darned**__ if __I'm__ going to point that out to him!_

Trevor rattled on cheerfully. "But anyway I am sure now because somehow without any words (because Claire you KNOW I am not Schizophrenic) this Shawn Spencer or whatever his real name is, and I am going to cross paths again and it won't be for him to fraud us next time or alas just to entertain us with really bad parlor tricks. We are going to need his help and I won't like it!"

Gods on The Loose In Santa Barbara

They checked into their hotel with no problems. Claire had decided to take one room so she could keep a closer eye on her patient, but with two beds of course. He didn't even give her any guff about it which was strange for him. No innuendos about how much warmer and more comfortable or more fun it would be if they slept together!

_She pursed her lips and stared at him, considering this. Maybe he was just getting more mature. Maybe that was all. Or maybe her years of working with him to get him to respect Women's boundaries was finally working. Well! It was way past time but she almost missed the old Trevor!_

_But no. It was more than that._While she got ready for her conference Trevor moped! There just was no other word for it. And she could not believe it! _She had never seen "Cupid" mope before!_

_Claire was a bit worried about him! Maybe it was a mistake to take away his usual defense mechanism of uniting couples to keep his incredibly complex mind busy working on that instead of whatever it was that had driven him over into his harmless psychosis! Without that to keep his big and brilliant mind occupied he was starting to brood now! This would be a good thing actually, if she were free to milk it along and dig and find out what was its real cause. But darn! She had the medical conference to go to and it was one that was really important to her now that she had gotten this close, one where she could learn things that might help hundreds of Patients! (She did have other responsibilities not just Trevor much as it pained her). She had to keep learning new things, new techniques because if she didn't the next Patient who came into her office could be terribly harmed by absolutely inexcusable ignorance! Suffering Patients paid very hard-earned money to come see Doctors like her and when they did it was because they were not feeling well at all! And were desperate for help to feel better! They deserved to get what they paid so very dearly for and finally got up the courage to consult: an up to date and well educated Expert!_

_Well. Maybe leaving Trevor alone for a few hours to think about whatever it was his subconscious no longer could hide with its usual being kept busy by matching couples was a GOOD THING. He probably would not get so bad in that short length of time he would harm himself but it would give it enough time to incubate. By the time she got back to him in four hours he might actually be willing to talk about his real past for once!_

She said to him, "Trevor I have to go to my medical conference. It is important I keep learning new things. You going to be alright by yourself?"

He actually snapped at her! "I am NEVER all by myself!"

She sighed but then smiled a sad little smile. "Alright. Your family will watch over you. Good! I wish many a time I had such faith! I wish some of my Patients did! Sex! Hex! It is always one or the other! Half my Patients need a good screwing, the other half need to learn to pray. Some need both! But you need to quit thinking People should pray TO you!"

Trevor shook his head, "Most of us little g gods figured that out two thousand years ago! Or even sooner! THAT is the problem! We want it! We are desperate for it! But we know we are no longer worthy! The Administration Change was just too good. We can't even be envious! Born in barn with cute little Animals! Taught you to finally to forgive one another! That cross publicity stunt finally has started shocking you out of your savagery and it took incredible courage and grace! We can't top it. We know! We are defeated, demoralized, lonely, missing you but not blaming you jumping ship! And we are driving one another nuts!"

Claire sighed.

"I was the youngest in the family, in fact in my entire town except for my kid brother, Antheros who was born legitimate and thus had lesser problems so I acted out more and so of _course_ I for no other reason than that I am the one in the family who ended up needing psychiatric care the most. But we are ALL messed up! You know how it is, it is never just only the Patient you see. It is always the entire family! When that family is immortal the problems go back thousands of years!"

Claire sighed, "Of course!" _Darn it Trevor! You are SO willing to talk about your problems! I'd give all my beauty to have all my Patients as willing! If only these were your REAL problems! Where in that huge brain of yours is the REAL you with the real problems, __**really**__ hiding?_

Claire nodded, "Well, we have been over this and over this and over this. I agree you are a bit too over-psychoanalyzed and we aren't getting anywhere. So here, take a vacation from that too." She handed Trevor a hundred dollar bill. "Consider it a birthday present. Oh I know. You consider your birthday to be in February a few days _after_ Valentine's day. Apparently we modern Mortals haven't quite got that right but are kind for trying. But then consider it an unbirthday present like the ones given at the mad tea party in Alice in wonderland, a fitting gift from a Shrink to a supposedly Psychotic patient though I am far from the first to admit there are times when you demonstrate more common sense than even Dr Greeley does. Don't you EVER tell him I said that or I could get fired!"

Trevor grinned and nodded.

_Inwardly Claire felt herself sighing with relief at that grin! That was what she was aiming for! That dangerous admission (which was true) had been for that purpose!_

She smiled at him. "So go enjoy just being a Tourist in Santa Barbara in the Spring time while I go hear a lecture about htp tryptophan and its value in aiding sleep in Psychosis. No matching anybody and no thinking about your past either! I don't even want you to try and remember any real memories for once! Go enjoy the present!"

Trevor grinned and waved his hundred dollar bill, "I sure will!"

"Not_ that_ present!"

Trevor grinned, "I KNOW which one you meant! Words have double meanings for reasons. Ever consider my Mortal last name of, _'Pierce'_ for instance? Remember I am the god of _passion!_ And now I am in fallen Mortal state and share with the Mortal race all its faults and responsibilities but also all the incredible blessing you are given! Remember what Christ went through! Remember Trevor means, "_Favorite_ Son." By Christ being sacrificed for my sins too just as much as any other Mortal's since I am now just as much one of the Mortals who _pierced_ Him in our irrational _passion _for justice,this god who has been made Mortal is being _favored_ over the Mortal who has been made God!" 

Claire said, "No time for debating that either. I am already late." _She resisted the urge to kiss, to hug, __to do anything physical because of course she was his Doctor and he was her Patient and they were not allowed to! _She rushed out the door of their hotel room.

Leaving Cupid to his own devices.

Cupid stared at the ceiling and did what he always did when he was "alone." "Uncle Mercury I know you are with me even though I cannot see or hear you. Jesus is too of course. Remember what we did a few years back in Rio? We hit every bar in town and got so snookered a Mortal had to guide us to our hotel room? But then Mortals have been guiding us gods since the dawn of Time and I have faith they always will! JC, good thing You are multidimensional and the Father can run things for us when You do things like that. Or we'd all be in deep doo doo! But anyway I know the two of you are listening and I have my party buddies with me even if I can't see or hear you any more! And here I am in another beautiful spot to party! Ah, but the thing is I just don't feel like it! Let's just go take a walk together instead!"

Trevor kissed the hundred spot because Claire had touched it and put it in his pocket. "I must be getting old! I have a hundred dollars and I don't feel like spending it on some floozy or beautiful nymph!"

The psychic veil was thin today. He could almost hear his Uncle Mercury say, "That is because you are intensely and completely and permanently for all eternity in love with Claire. The myth got it wrong for once. You did not have to accidentally drop one of your arrows on your foot while looking at your Psyche though I could see that happening, you clumsy little squirt! You just plain fell in love manually with her like one of your own couples! But careful! You know what would happen if the two of you had sex before you unite one hundred couples and come home for re-godding first."

"Yes! She would lose her license!" Trevor sighed.

"You know that is not what I am talking about! And quit thinking of yourself as Trevor right now! You are Cupid! Eros! Armour! Erotic Love incarnate! You are a god! You have a hundred dollars! You are in Santa Barbara, a Port town in the Spring at the dawn of the Twenty-First century!"

"I am a lunatic who is almost hearing voices!" Trevor snapped at his Uncle! He put his hands in his pockets and headed out of the hotel room, a very uncharacteristically big frown on his face!

Jesus and Uncle Mercury stared after him. Uncle Mercury said puzzled, "He is certainly not himself today!"

Jesus said, "He is about to grow. Tall as you are, as much as you have done it, you know growth can hurt sometimes. But I am growing myself a big, tall Eros! Not that silly little putio who used to misfire arrows and harm lives! All you little g gods are my organs just as Mortals are my cells and I want to be made up of the best little g gods I can be!"

Uncle Mercury nodded. "In the end my son will not fail you!"

Jesus nodded, "Cupid will never fail me! In fact he is about to have his own little time of testing now and he will NOT fail me! Not him! Not my Little Mirror!'

Uncle Mercury nodded. His craggy face beamed with pride even as his eyes wet with tears.

Jesus reached out a calloused hand and touched Mercury's sweet old face with his finger carefully collecting the tear. "No more of these today! He'll live! Now! I know this little nook near the bay where the Scallops are to die for and I ought to know! I did! You buy for once!"

Uncle Mercury groaned and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, "The way you pack it in I won't have cell phone minutes for the rest of the month!"

But Jesus was already across town at a table with a great view of the harbor and waiting for him.

Uncle Mercury had Jesus saved to favorites in the divine realm version of following someone which works the same way as following someone's avatar in virtual realms such as Second life or Worlds dot com when they teleport. So Uncle Mercury was in the blink of an eye at the same restaurant and since some Mortal had hours earlier suddenly been "told" in some way he did not understand to make a reservation at that restaurant that he had also been "told" not to show up for they had a table right by a picture window waiting for them with a beautiful view of the Santa Barbara Harbor.

Soon Uncle Mercury was staring at Jesus packing in the Oysters. "How do you justify this?"

Talking with His mouth full, Jesus said, "Now now! You know they all get uploaded. Everything this low down the Evolutionary Vine of Life does so automatically. No free will code written into them yet. So they don't even have a choice! 'Not even a Sparrow!' Ha! Wild Life rescue operations will not/did not cease until every proto-virus in Creation and every Time-Line is preserved forever in my Cube. I don't think even _I_ could stop it. If I did Heaven would no longer be Heaven for multitudes of Animal Lovers!"

"No! I mean eating like a Pig!"

Jesus smiled and speared another Oyster with His fork. "I Am not. Pigs show more restraint."

Uncle Mercury was exasperated. "Well that's exactly what I mean! You not only got accused off being a Glutton. You are one!"

Jesus grinned, "Gluttony when no one is harmed, is not a sin. And it certainly not in _this_ economy. In fact My new commandment to the Peoples of Post 9/11 who are terrified of mostly nothing which is just what the devil wants. I ask, 'Did I hold back my blessings from flowing due to the hatred of a few clever terrorists and their three lucky strikes? No! Only your lack of faith is holding your economy back! Get going! Get moving! Buy stuff! Purchase services! Put your Neighbors back to work! And remember my story of the Good Samaritan! Remember how NASA showed you just how small your Planet is. _Everyone_ is your Neighbor!"

Uncle Mercury sat there trying to take in even part of all this. "Gluttony is not sin?"

Jesus swallowed and shook His head. "Never is as long as there is plenty of food for everyone. Or more can be produced if there is more demand and doing so is beneficial. You know all to well this is not Humanity's only down time economically due to their having lost faith! Read my Bible very carefully! Did I say "Thou shalt not eat with gusto? Did I say 'do not eat a lot?" There is no such commandment in either Old or New Testament! I gave safety laws only for how to handle food while under survival mode conditions. But there were never any calorie restrictions when there was enough food to go around and even those safety mode instructions were lifted later (and should be, unless really needed for when living under real survival conditions). When Peter was told to 'kill and eat' it wasn't just a metaphor to give up bigotry towards other kinds of People. I also meant it to be true in its literal sense, 'Expand your range of what you consider edible. Be a little brave and have a food adventure once in a while!' I also said 'knock and those who open to me I will come in and dine with them and they with me.' I love to eat! You know it! When invited to come live inside my Kids is the only chance I get to! And what do I have all too often? Congregations full of whiners complaining about calories when I Am inside of them wanting to pig out! I AM a frustrated God, sometimes, Merc! At least the Amish work hard enough they are HUNGRY when they sit down at their tables! They are sillies about some things, not wearing my pretty colors and letting the electricity I gave Humanity as a gift to use into their houses but at least they work hard enough they get hungry and thus enjoy my foods and the taste and smell sensations I made for their nerve cells to interact with, and so Me inside of them gets to do the same! And they remember to thank me for it! Too many Moderns can't think to do that even in the _middle_ of their meals. Saying grace doesn't have to be at the beginning or at the very end! With Modern Mortals that would be too much of Mortal Miracle to expect them to sit down or get up at the same time and it's not necessary. In the middle of the meal would be fine! In the middle during a commercial break if they watch TV while they eat would be fine, (though quite frankly the commercials are often the better shows!) But with the Amish at least I don't have Calorie Counters! I can snuggle down inside their amaygdalas and to my eternal delight, do this!" Jesus grabbed some dark brown bread out of its little basket, smeared on real butter and stuffed the whole thing in His mouth, all at once, chewing lustily. He grinned, His mouth still full, "I Am Lord God of the Multiverse. I Am NOT Emily Post!"

Uncle Mercury laughed. "You just aren't what so many of them think you are!'

Jesus grinned, "Thank Me for that! If they'd look around at my pretty, wild and wooly Multiverse you'd think they'd get a clue! Not made for sissies and not made for fuddie duddies either! For instance that bit with the waste disposal pipe running through the recreational and reproductive area. Robin Williams says It's 'cause I must be an Engineer! Well I Am! But I'm a GOOD Engineer! But that was lousy engineering! And I just don't do lousy! There was another reason for that placement! _Think,_ Robin Williams! I am not only an Engineer. I have billions of Stand up Comics as part of my matrix too, so I'm a Stand Up Comic too. One of the best stand up Comics of the Twentieth and Twenty-first century doesn't recognize one of the best jokes a Fellow Comedian ever did when he sees it!" Jesus grinned. "I got a joke right over Robin William's head and that takes some doing! Even for me!"

Uncle Mercury giggled.

Then Jesus playfully pounded on the table, grinned at Uncle Mercury and then glowed at their server. "Waiter I will have another bottle of this excellent Chianti, please!'

Uncle Mercury was thinking of the money flying out of his pockets. "How do you justify this drinking of way too much Chianti!

Jesus gave Uncle Mercury a toothy grin, "With a side of fava beans? I always follow the Golden Rule when I drink. I never drink in such a way I harm others when I do so. I never operate any kind of machinery while under its influence. And having Dissociative Identity Syndrome (and Cupid and other DIDs who make this claim are right. It is a highly useful and very adaptive to reality _syndrome_ not a disorder) lets my other Me, the Father, run the Universe while I get to go do things like this. It is why all gods, both big and little g have Human Personalities as well as their elemental spirit parts that do the divine stuff. So Helios can run around Hestia's Place begging other gods to take him on with a game of Monopoly and the Sun still shines! Comes from Time circling round and round and round, so We are both inside of Time and outside of Time. But you know this."

Uncle Mercury sighed and thought, "But I'm having to pay for it!"

Jesus read his mind. "In payment for this you will be guided to another way to communicate with your son. (Yes he is your _son_!) You will communicate with him in a way you think I do not approve of, but you won't exactly be breaking Dead-privacy laws due to the reality of the situation. Anyway I am giving you a special dispensation here. It will more than make up for cell phone minutes you can't buy! Now come one! Have I ever let you or anyone down?

Uncle Mercury sighed, "Just the day you caused that Kid to fall off the roof!"

Jesus shrugged. "Well I was just a Kid myself! I was learning! I got him back again didn't I?''

"CRR hardly counts as a miracle!"

Jesus shrugged. "Like the Parents cared I used a little Twenty-Third Century first-aid technique! At least they got their Kid back and a real disaster was prevented there! Jesus frowned. "The time-line could have gone completely different there due to a stupid mistake I made as an Eight Year Old! A mistake, not a sin! We were jumping around up there, and he got too close to the edge. I was in full Mortal mode at that time, just a Child, though a very strong, bright Child with mere glimmerings of my connection to All Future knowledge! I wasn't supposed to be doing any divine miracles until I livened up my friend, Lazarus's wedding and turned water into wine! In Mortal mode I could goof, Merc. I just chose not to ever disobey my Father so I never sinned! For instance just in case it ever confused you, yes, to name just one example, Poppy seeds really are smaller than Mustard seeds. The meaning of the parable I was telling however, remains the same! My Kingdom started out as just a tiny, crazy-wise idea. It evolved, (for that was the original meaning of that word; what a seedling does, emerging from its seed casing) and it grew and it grew and it grew! And it branched and it got pruned as all things do. For survival of the fittest influences ideas and societies too, not just Living Things. It branched some more and it grew so high and so broad and so mighty 'that even the Birds of the Heavens can nest in its branches.'" Jesus smiled. "Even odd ducks like you crazy gods in those colorful little god-keeps of yours!"

Uncle Mercury nodded, "All I can say to that is, 'Thank you!' Amazing Grace indeed!'

Jesus smiled sadly, "What the Mortals have done to you little g gods does make me cry sometimes! Making living, self aware idols is such a cruelty for you! Life as play toys! But you make me laugh once in a while too!"

Uncle Mercury nodded.

Jesus said, "My current cube, New Jerusalem is only the beginning! Gene Roddenberry's dream is being absorbed into Mine. Resistance really is futile because there is no viable, long term defense against my patient, forever-persistent, expansion plan of making acceptance of my indwelling completely voluntary, utterly harmless, and great fun! Besides very slowly taking over all time-lines in this Multiverse, ships full of Fictionals are being sent out beyond the hyper-void to explore beyond the reaches of Reality. They are going outwards, forever outwards to see if there is anything beyond this Multiverse!"

Uncle Mercury whistled, "Going where no God has gone before!"

Jesus nodded, "No. actually I am sending the Fictionals to do that for Me. I am using them as my probes!" 

"Captain Kirk?"

Jesus nodded, "You betcha! Googolplexes of him! Picards by the fleets full! Multitudes! All kinds of such as them!"

Then the Lord of the Universe stuffed another Oyster in His mouth, took one last hearty swing of wine straight out the bottle which He then took with Him and "beamed" back up to New Jerusalem.

When Uncle Mercury paid the bill he sighed as he realized had exactly enough in his pockets to do that and leave his usual generous tip. This did not surprise him.

Trevor Gets in Trouble

Trevor meanwhile walked out the hotel room, down the hall, got in the elevator, punched the buttons to the lobby, walked out almost shuffling like a Senior Citizen, _feeling all of three thousand years old which should have felt like nothing! That was young to a god! But he felt like a Mortal would feel if __**he**__ was three thousand years old! He was remembering way too much also, wars his father __had started and how the battle field looked __afterwards, the Bubonic plague, the billions of __Grasshoppers all his thunderbolts were no match for that had caused his First Love to starve to death! Oh my these were such nice thoughts to have at a vacation city!_

__He walked out the door of the hotel with no particular destination in mind, the smell of salt in his nostrils. _New York smelled like salt too but not __like this, not like WARM, tropical salt!_

_Why does the smell of Sodium cheer Mortals up so much when it is supposed to be so bad for them?_

_Because we are Water Apes of course. Even we gods have some of these genes in us. Our Ancestors lived along the sea shore which is why we are mostly hairless like Seals and Hippopotamuses and make Love front to front as most Sea Mammals do, unlike all other Apes who do it from behind. Salt air means we are near the sea and our high Omega 3 and iodine food supply. Thus our brains sense we will be fed well and that of course makes us instinctively happy to know this. It is just plain old adaptive evolution that the smell of salt air makes us feel happy!_

_Evolution or Intelligent Design? Well just leave evolution alone long enough! By the time the Wheel of Time repeats itself that next trip round it will be intelligently designed alright! Because Life would not **dare** leave that to chance! We don't want to be over-written by another pattern forming! Time has been circling forever so of COURSE it is Intelligently designed! Evolution is just part of how it's done. Just a lazy way to get Life to design itself. Even some Computer Programers are using its very well known rules to make their job of designing programs much easier. _Trevor looked at the sky and grinned with his usual mischief_. "_Hey JC! Last time I checked Programers are considered intelligent! (Though I admit there are times when I wonder a whole lot about those folks at IBM!)"

Then Trevor looked at the sky still again. "So why'd you let it make this big mess You did? Oh I know! I know! Which bad guys do we get rid of? Quit fussing! It might be some nice Person's Ancestors including our own! Yada Yada! I know! How many more nail holes would it take to make us finally feel You've been sufficiently punished for the mess You've made and as You said in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 'sorry for the inconvenience'!' It is just I am in a foul mood today! I should not, NOT ever be not matching couples! How many negatives is that? Double negatives? No!" Trevor stood there on the street corner counting to himself. "I think I used three! Does three negatives add up to a positive? I am so confused!"

A Man passed him on a bicycle. "You sure are! Talking to yourself! Go get a Shrink!"

Finally "Trevor" felt like laughing! He did so. He through back his head and belly laughed knowing full well finally again that his family was enjoying that little encounter and then he was alright again, _Crazy Trevor or Crazy Cupid, it did not matter! Either way he was considered crazy but he was still __bringing color and fun to this time line!_ He fingered his one hundred bucks. "How do I spend it? I will not spend it on Females when now only Claire would make me happy and not even in the usual sense! I don't even want so much to bed her as to have her promise to ALWAYS bed me even if that means waiting for her for a very long time! The thing is I see the same look in her eyes. My Jove I AM Cupid! I know what I am seeing! We are SO betrothed to one another even if we don't dare admit it!"

That cheered him up, his admitting his true feelings something neither of them were daring do in "therapy!" They were avoiding doing that like the plague by spending way too much time in Trevor's past talking about things, like _The Plague!_ That had been horrible of course! No one should ever live in the past and that is the problem with therapy. It can make one start to do that _very_ quickly. In her misguided zeal to find the real "Trevor" Claire was accidentally actually teaching "Trevor" to brood and mull over the unchangeable past, something it had not been in his nature to worry about before.

But she was also without meaning to, (since she thought it all confabulation,) accidentally curing him of his irresponsible behavior back on Olympus! Cupid was developing a conscience to go along with his built-in sense of compassion and was his family ever pleased with the soon to be, Psyche, goddess of Science and Reason for helping him do that!

_But here he was in Santa Barbara with a hundred bucks, no desire for any Woman but the one he would have to wait a very long time for and his drinking buddies were invisible and unheararable! Though **absolutely** he was sure they were with him!_

_Well he would give each of them one drink in their names later. Right now he just felt like walking!_

So he did! _Free cosmos!_

He came to a sports store. It had a bow and some very sharp metal arrows in the window.

Cupid whistled in spite of himself! Because in spite of being the Love god and in spite of his definite desire never to start a war as Mars did all the time and his desire that no more ever be started by _anybody, anywhere for any reason_ there was still some of Mars in him too! Rather Mars was his Father or his Uncle, either way the love god had at least some of the war god's genes. Plus there was family influence._ Cupid could not help admiring, no absolutely GROKING this beautiful, beautiful, bow and the long silver arrows that it fired! He had to fire it himself, just not at anything living! Oh no! __Not that! But harmlessly at some unliving target._

He entered the shop. _Like that target on the bail of hay in the back of the store! Duh! Of course if they __sell it they would have a way for Folks to try it. I wonder how much and if I bought it how would I get it home? It would have to be shipped. Darn 9/11! My father should be horse whipped but how do you horsewhip a god? Present company __excluded, JC! _

Cupid (for now he knew he was Cupid again) went up to the bow now that he was on its side of the glass and took a closer look. He groaned. _Well! That takes care of any latent desire to find a way to __ship it home! Six hundred smackers! At that price I'll stick to yew bows made at local Renascence festivals or Indian pow wows if this Mental Patient even dares freak out his Psychiatrist by deciding to own a bow while still stuck in the Mortal realm! Oh but I would at least love to shoot those long silver arrows! I know they are not magic as mine were, but my! They are fine pieces of Mortal-tech! Even in the twenty-First century, even after the Moon launch they are continuing to evolve what Robin Hood shot! _

_Do I even dare touch it? Oh come on! I have as much right as any other Consumer to at least do that! It is not like my ball drop conviction and Out Patient commitment status means I can't at least look at a fine piece of artwork and finger it and play with it for a few moments if the Salesperson is friendly and will let me! Because that is all this is to me, a fine work of art! Doesn't matter that I am a god either. Even we gods can be granted this much mercy! Administration change or not! The Big Guy loves us and considering how we are that IS a miracle! _

The Salesperson had noticed him standing there. _Good! He certainly __wasn't__ trying to hide!_

The Man came over. "Sir, may I help you?"

Trevor smiled and said, "I admit right up front I can't afford this, sir. But if I put twenty bucks in those charity jars there, ten in the breast cancer can and ten in the no-kill Animal shelter can, may I shoot these arrows at that target there for a few minutes? I promise to be really careful! I do have archery training including the most important parts, the safety parts. _And that was true. It was his own stupid fault he had ignored some of that and gotten cast down for it._

The Salesperson smiled, "I admire your honesty sir. "The last five bozos who wanted to fire this expensive thing pretended they had the money to buy it but then changed their mind for some reason! Sure! Go for it! Long as I don't see you are being dangerous or a nuisance spend the entire afternoon! We aren't going to sell it. That is for certain. Not in this economy!"

_Not a very optimistic Salesmen was he? But this means I am now set to spend the rest of my afternoon having some real nostalgia time in a new fashioned way! But Uncle Mercury, Jesus? Someone see to it this thing sells to a Target Shooter, not a Hunter or any kind of a killer but for their sake make it quick! _Trevor smiled and nodded at the much shorter Salesperson, and then tucked the promised money in the cans. It was his own money. Claire's one hundred dollar bill stayed still unbroken. Then he carefully lifted the bow out of its holder in the window, grabbed the arrows, headed for the target area and tightened the string using the little turning knobs to do so, smiling as he remembered how doing that with the first bow he had used had taken all of his little putio, physical strength and been just the bending of a strong piece of carved yew wood with a string of leather! His match-ups his first five hundred years as a little godling had been done with darts due to he could not yet bend a bow to string one!

He notched a arrow and let it fly. It hit the middle of the bulls eye of course.

The Salesperson was impressed of course. "Great shooting!" He said, smiling.

Trevor smiled at him. "You ain't seen nothing yet! I can't fire these arrows into the shaft of the one I just fired as I could with certain kinds of wooden ones due to their being metal. But.._.what should I do?_ Trevor thought. He gazed at a poster displaying Nike shoes with their lightning bolt symbol. He thought, Perfect! _I am a god who could throw __lightning bolts! I was talking about that with Claire earlier. And with this symbol being on supposedly fast shoes this will honor my very fast Uncle Mercury our little town's beloved postman. Is he watching I wonder? I hope so. I sure miss him!"_

Of course he was! Uncle Mercury had just heard very unsettling news from some local fairies! (No, not the Gay kind: Real fairies). About what was happening in Santa Barbara amongst the Mortals. So suddenly Uncle Mercury was very, very worried for his Kid! "Stop it Trevor!" He howled! But darn, damn! Bloody bloody! Black hole-with-an-Angel-caught-in-it-suckin, friggin, whop!, Dumb-Bunnie deity with no brains at all! Not even half the fluff that stuffed with nothing but leaking cotton, Pooh Bear he had insisted on carrying around with him for five hundred years! (Keeping it going that long had proven quite a challenge!) And not one psychic ear-nerve to hear his hollarin at the top of his celestial lungs even though the poor god in mixed up, miss-guided Mortal-mode thought (only thought) he was being talked to by him earlier! "Trevor" was about to get himself into a whole pack of trouble!"

Using the Nike shoe poster as a guide Cupid fired the arrows in the exact same lightning bolt pattern. He did it perfectly and calmly without even worrying one bit he would miss. Of course he did not.

Trevor smiled. He set the bow down for a few seconds. A satisfied feeling had overtaken him. _By Jove you have not lost it! You still can out-shoot __anything in any realm in this Universe! Even other gods from other planets have tried to out-shoot you and you had taken them on with their own weapons and beat them! They failed miserably to come anywhere near close despite all their self confidence! The standard limitation was as always the only restriction, as long as it was not alive, you Cupid can still hit anything with anything!_ _He had fired ray guns the size of real death stars at NON populated rock worlds the size of Jupiter and pulverized them, then gone to quantum levels and had won a target contest firing at quarks with a gun too small to be seen with a Mortal's naked eye __on __Alph__a Cent__auri__ with his equivalent, fellow, match making, elementary spirit there, He'd won hands down (or in that case tentacles down)._ _I wonder how Poo Poo is doing these days?_

Suddenly he heard Mortals say something he thought he never would again off a TV show in non-omnipresent mode. _Because he was being so __careful! _"You are under arrest! Put your hands up! Anything you say will be used against you..._and __there he was being read his Miranda rights again!_

His dark eyes glazed over. _He was in shock! He was in a store trying to stay out of trouble! Trying to obey Claire! Not pulling any pranks for once! Cold sober! Trying to grow up and be more responsible. He had been so good! He had! Trying so hard! He had! It just wasn't fair!_

Cupid gestured as all Greeks did at the heavens when the gods were this mean! _  
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"Sir put your hands DOWN so we can cuff them! Cooperate or we will charge you with resisting arrest!"

H_e could have been already! Just for being Greek and waving his arms around to gesture at his family could even have been seen as threatening these Police! Misreading of body signals because __of culture differences! Happens all the time! Unlucky as he was being he was still being __incredibly lucky and he was being Stupid Cupid __now! Pay attention to what was happening! Ignore __the internal chatter!_

Trevor/Cupid sighed and put his hands behind his back for cuffing!

At the Santa Barbara Police Station Lock up.

The Mental Patient insisted vehemently. "Why can't I be put in with the other Prisoners? I could do a singalong and cheer them up and by so doing cheer myself up! "

Buzz frowned. _This new suspect was really weird! __No wonder he had been warned to isolate him!_ He said gruffly."Because of your condition. The other Prisoners might take advantage of you."

The crazy guy drew himself up to his considerable height. "Ha! My Father is the god of war! I have over 500 years of martial arts training."

Buzz sighed. G_od of war? Oh brother!__Who did __that make him? He wasn't a fan of mythology. The __one God was enough for him! "_Yeah sure, buddy!"

The suspect insisted, "I'm serious, "God of love I am but if I had to I could defend myself at least! I just can't _kill_!"

Buzz stared at him. '_God of love?' 'Can't kill?' He is supposed to be the Robin Hood slayer and yet he thinks he can't kill! And he thinks he is 'the god of LOVE!' _

Uncle Mercury could almost see literal question marks forming over this Mortal's head but Trevor was too worried and upset to notice.

Buzz said as soothingly as possible just to humor an obvious lunatic. "Listen. It will only be for a little while. Until after your trial. Then they will move you, I am sure to a secure facility somewhere."

The suspect protested, "You mean a psych ward somewhere! Another mental hospital! I don't need one of those! I don't belong in one!"

Buzz snarled. "Now don't give me trouble! Be glad it isn't Alcatraz! Heck! Some Folks want you hung on the spot! Now get in there!"

As the unseen Uncle Mercury watched in horror Cupid was shoved into a solitary cell. It had no bars. It reeked of a mixture of disinfectant, Human fear and the faint smell of urine. It was a solid concrete cell designed to minimize ways for a disturbed Prisoner to harm one's self.

The door slammed shut._ That had to be the most horrible sound in the World!_

Cupid stared out its little window terrified and started all out sobbing!

_Uncle Mercury longed to hold his Kid! Longed to comfort him! But darn it! There was that psychic veil/mental force field between his realm and ours in the way! _

It has to be there of course. Or we would see many things we should not see, the devil's minions for instance that make Medusa look beautiful in comparison, the war that is being fought for this Planet, our dead loved ones who did not make it into New Jerusalem which would disturb us greatly, elementary spirits of all kinds, both good and bad, all of Cupid's family for instance and the other little g gods and also fairies, (both are kinds of elementary spirits whose job it is to intelligently regulate the Universe), plus Angels and Beings we do not even have names for and have not conceived of in this realm! All of this would drive most of us instantly Psychotic! Even if we just barely managed to keep our sanity the distractions from our need to concentrate on the survival of our flesh would be deadly! Evolution actually usually favors those who can't sense the other dimensions beyond our five because most of the time it does us no Earthly good! Plus our desperate attempts to build New Jerusalem would actually be slowed down or stopped by knowing it was there! Science is based on NOT believing in anything and searching for the Truth, not on being certain of it! And while Faith assures us it is there and spurs us along the quest, it takes Science to build it. (Cupid will dance with Psyche forever!)

_But it was darned inconvenient now!_ Uncle Mercury furrowed his shaggy, red-hair covered brow in very deep worry! "Trevor" lay on the thin, solid rubber mattress, crying his eyes out! Like the bigger Love God he is one component of, Cupid is a People-god. Being alone was destroying his soul! Like many Energy Beings whose natural habitats are Mortal brains/organic hard drives, (or god-keeps when they are not inside of those), who need to feed on various Mortal emotions, Cupid needs to feed on Love! (This is why gods need worship). Deprived of Omnipresence, Cupid needed direct contact with other Beings to get any. But he wasn't getting any locked up by himself! Too long alone could actually be deadly!

So Uncle Mercury had good reason to be worried sick about his kid!

Uncle Mercury shouted at him, "It's OK, Eros! Things will be OK! God's in His Heaven and while all may not be right with the World, it's being worked on and progress is being made!"

_But just as he horribly suspected even if he was shouting, Cupid in his current state was too spiritually deaf to hear him! _

Uncle Mercury shouted, "Cupey! Eros! Armour! Don't be so full of fear! You are a GOD! You of all folks ought to KNOW darn well what happens to Mortals when they get full of fear! They lose their ability to hear their spiritual Fathers! Calm your brain down! Have faith! You know when you listen closely and get relaxed and have even just a little bit of faith I can shout really loud and you can hear me at least as a still small voice!"

_FUTILE! Eros just sobbed! He wasn't even trying to listen for that still small voice!_

Uncle Mercury's shouted at the top of his lungs! "KID, I LOVE YOU!"

Finally Eros spoke! "Uncle Mercury! Why have you abandoned me? WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANY MORE?"

Uncle Mercury burst into violent tears himself!

Christ came then. Uncle Mercury fell into His arms and God held god for a while. Silence too can be a type of prayer. Finally Jesus gently said, spreading His gnarled, tool and nail scarred hands and nodding at Trevor/Favorite Son/Cupid. "Sometimes only time can help and you know it! Our kids have to grow and growth is painful to watch and painful to go through!"

Uncle Mercury sobbed, "But why does it have to be this way?"

"I had a perfect Multiverse once!"

"Why did it get wrecked?'

"I wrecked it on purpose!"

"But WHY!"

"To prepare!"

"For what?"

"In case we are not alone!"

"In case we are not _alone!"_

Jesus swallowed. "Mercury, what if there _is_ something beyond _our_ Multiverse? What if it has misery, war, suffering, death, violence? What if it comes here looking to make trouble? Looking to invade! If all We know is perfection how do We know how to handle that? I had to prepare Us!"

Mercury was exasperated! "WAR! _Always_ we have to prepare for WAR? Is my brother, Mar's job _never_ finished?"

Jesus bowed His head in sorrow and looked at His nails scarred hands. He shook His head and flexed His hands, flinching in memory. Finally He said, "Sadly, maybe not. Better to be prepared! Or, what if it turns out they need O_ur_ help? Because if we have only known perfection and never suffered ourselves we will have no concept of compassion to know to help! Or how! In that perfect Multiverse I had no compassion! I had no need! No one did, so no one needed any compassion! The machines had won: rewritten all circles of time so when all big bangs banged again in each and every time/space bubble and in every time line in those bubbles there were no more Organic Beings, so there was no more suffering. All Life was self aware, sinless and perfect! No one knew pain, anger, envy, sloth or any kind of suffering and neither did I for I was of course, as now, made up of the Individuals who live in me and who invite me to live in them and We were all machine-perfect so I was machine-perfect, not this hairy, scarred, nail-holed, Glutton and a Winebibber you have now!" He grinned mischievously. "One of the reasons I emphasize forgiveness is so I can have peace when I go home to Mary Magdalene!

Uncle Mercury chuckled. "Oh, Women! Can't live without em and can't change their operating code! I know! Brother Vulcan has been trying to for over five thousand years!"

Jesus nodded, "True. But its not just Women and you know it. More Folks miss the eternal party I'm throwing for failure to forgive Me than the other way around! My heart keeps breaking! I wish they would cut Me some slack! Way too few realize I am simply doing the best I can!"

Uncle Mercury frowned and nodded. "I have faith you are doing the best anyone could! There are just too many variables that have to be balanced!" Then quietly he added , "So how did we avoid this Borg-fate of a perfect Universe for all Time's turning?"

Jesus shuttered, "We realized the danger! We ran simulations. They showed what would happen if our perfect Multiverse kept up and we got too used to it and we were contacted hostilely or even non-hostilely by a non-perfect Multiverse. We decided, quite logically perfection was far from worth it! So the next rotation in some of those universes Organic Life with all its wonderful messiness and its need for Life to have nail holes was allowed to evolve again with VERY careful guidance! But wine and bread and Fish and cheese and sunrise beach picnics came right along with the nail holes!" Jesus grinned again. "People forget about the fun parts of my life. I wanted my symbol to be the Fish you evolved from and are supposed to eat to keep your brains healthy and to remember the fun I had with you Guys catching them and feeding you and eating with you, not my few days of suffering on my cross! Turn it sideways it looks like the rockets Mortals launch towards their grand future!" .

Uncle Mercury nodded. "yes, even though with us gods evolution has screeched to a grinding halt!"

Jesus smiled, "Yes. But not quite yet. I am opening your mind to the fact there will still be one more goddess born." He smiled at Uncle Mercury. "Lucky Grandad! Now this part of the myths are open to you! They are already written of course and Mortals have known them for thousands of years. They wrote them. But they are of course closed to you gods until the time is right. Now is right for you to know this part!"

Jesus grinned as Uncle Mercury realized that Cupid and Psyche/Claire would marry and give birth to Delightful just as the ancient myths had commanded they would. For what we Mortals wish concerning our gods we always make it so! We write their stories on paper and on film and in other ways and we also go around the Wheel of Time and write their stories in Reality Space. Just as with all other Fictionals We are _the god__'__s_ Creators.

"I'm going to be a Grand Pops!" Uncle Mercury couldn't believe the miracle! "After thousands of years one of my generation is going to actually manage this!"

Jesus grinned again. "You are the only one of your generation who will manage this! Trevor is the Favorite Son but you are the Favored Grand Father, Mercury, Messenger of the gods!" Jesus put out His hand and They shook. Then with his eyes misting over Mercury hugged Jesus again. But this time it was out of joy!

But poor Trevor himself was still in agony! He howled again. It wasn't even a Human noise. It sounded more like the sound Felix's Dog's, Jalapeno or Pepe would have made locked up away from their gods (their Humans). Uncle Mercury and Jesus turned and looked at Trevor. They sighed in unison.

Jesus said, "I stay always with him. You know that. Go work off the wiggles of joy and sorrow the way you always have to do, you hyperactive deity! Then get some badly needed sleep! I never need sleep being rewritten by the Mortals the way I've been to be the Head Control Mind."

Uncle Mercury nodded. He was gone in a flash. That was just the way he always moved.

Jesus was left alone with "Trevor." Even though he could not see him the Big God sat down next to His Little Mirror, just as He simultaneously sat in similar cells all over the whole wide World and in the private rooms of palaces and Rich People's mansions; places that often contain equal despair.

Cupid wept. His head hung low. The concrete floor soaked wet with his tears!

Jesus said gently, "You know I love you and your family still loves you! You are a god yourself! You too have the code of Humanity's Pets in you; Dog code and Cat code. Mortals when they wrote us, knew where to go to get the best Love code and they inserted that into their gods, both their little love gods and their Big One when they wrote us. You know how deeply and forever Dogs and Cats Love! You know you, Little Mirror cannot help but love because of that, being made up of this most sacred and precious of all code and you know your Uncle Mercury and your Mother also have that same code and thus can not possibly abandon you and will always love you! And you know I also have that same code and also cannot possibly abandon you! It just cannot be done! I cannot abandon any Mortal for that reason! You know this! Even if you cannot feel it right now that huge, over 300 IQ brain of yours ought to be reminding you of this!"

Cupid just sobbed!

Jesus put His head down and started sobbing too! _Even Cupid! Even his Little Mirror! Despite an intellect programmed by necessity to be big enough to easily keep track of every particle in every time-line in every time-space bubble in the Multiverse_ _He had long ago lost count of the number of times __His heart had been broken by Mortal unbelief! _

_The god of love Versus the Santa Barbara Sour Puss_

Early the next morning Trevor was taken to be interrogated by Lassiter.

His eyes were red from crying and sleep deprivation. Juliet told Lassiter he had been shouting all night at Invisibles as Psychotics are wont to do. Juliet, among other things, had tried to talk to him without much success. _He was very __strange but he hadn't seemed evil! _

Sympathy was not in Lassiter's vocabulary! He believed that in order to get information from your prisoner, you had to be strong and remain the one in authority. If you gave them an inch, they would take it and you, the interrogator, would be left humiliated! But for the first time in a long time, Lassiter felt something he had not felt for a very long time for any Prisoner; sympathy! _Why? He __**had**__ to be guilty! This one was not taking solitary confinement well. But you didn't dare put someone like him in with the general prison population. But still! What he had done! And yet? Something about the situation was nagging at him! Or was it __something else? __Lassiter knew not to give him an inch! ___He was a dangerous criminal after all! __

Uncle Mercury was staring right at the back of Lassiter's hippocampus, trying to get right into his mind, trying desperately to communicate to him that his son was innocent! But as almost always the prayers of the gods to Mortals were remaining unanswered! And yet as with us praying to them they keep trying! We both keep trying! Such is Faith! Such is Love!

Trevor stared straight at Lassiter with wide, innocent eyes and exclaimed, "I am not a criminal, _nor am I_ criminally insane! I did not commit any act of crime and I am certainly not even crazy no matter what Folks think in two separate realms! You of all People should know that! You on the other hand are Obsessive Compulsive with severe social difficulties and problems holding your temper due to Glutamate that causes rage reactions in many People. Glutamate is allowed by the FDA to hide in foods under 40 different names these days. And you are one of the ones it causes problems to the point you isolate yourself out of fear you might harm someone or at least allow it to show if you let yourself get too close to someone. So you are very lonely and your self imposed isolation only makes you even more angry and bitter! And like other Intelligent individuals with this condition I know you've spent hours reading about mental health issues trying to figure yourself out!"

Lassiter stared at him shocked in surprise. "Glutamate? That's it?"

The suspect insisted, "I am colourful not crazy! Even if I ever were, Claire healed me of that the first time I ever laid eyes on her. Not just me. My Host! Her beauty did!"

Lassiter had no doubt that the man before him was guilty! "You didn't shoot all these Females?" Furious with the perp Lassiter flung the brutal pictures of the victims under the Prisoner's nose, trying to shock him.

The Man no doubt had seen too many Cop shows. He knew these pictures Lassiter was trying to show to show him would be shocking so he turned his face away and slid the pictures away without looking. Instead he said. "I couldn't! Well physically I could have, I mean I could have out-shot Robin Hood. I actually once had the chance to go at it one on one with him but I found an excuse to not be there that day. It would have broken his heart! Better to be thought the Coward I've been thought many times. I had better things to do than destroy that fine Mortal's self esteem! I went and caused over population in India instead. That one day of extra attention to helping them fall in love in that area made all the difference. Sorry! My irrresponsibility there did lead to over population in India but I just can't kill! Claire will tell you that."

He leaned forward, "But I'm not nuts in that respect either. I can handle pest control for the bar I work at just fine. I will tear Grasshoppers apart with my bare hands ! My Girlfriend and I_, _Chryseis got caught in a plague of them that lasted for hours and the sky was dark and when they were done there was nothing left! My cute little lightning bolts fried millions but there were billions! All my Mortal Friends starved to death around me! I watched them do it, could not stop it! This little god did not win that one! I hate Grasshoppers! Them I can kill, sir! But little else. I tried to kill plague Rats once. I did not. Couldn't hit them in that case. None of us could. They were just too fast for us! They kept scurrying into cracks and getting away and we kept running into each other! It was kind of funny at first! Uncle Vulcan ended up inventing those high pitched sonic repellers you Mortals re-invented later and we just used them to drive the vector of the infection away. But it proved futile. Futile!" Then suddenly the Man started sobbing again. His chest was heaving. "Oh poor, poor, Mr. McGreggor!"

Lassiter stared at him in amazement. _He was completely serious! He couldn't believe it but he had to ask!_ Lassiter took a breath, tilted his head and gritted his teeth as and forced himself to gently inquire. "Tell me about it."

The Prisoner took a breath before continuing, he spoke in barely more than a whisper."It was an isolated enough village that driving the Rats into the surrounding woods seemed a safe enough option. They would not have made it into another town to spread the Fleas that were carrying the plague. So it seemed a harmless enough solution." The man sighed and shook his head. "It didn't work. The plague gotcha anyway!

"You Mortals in that village were not scared of us. Few really ever are. _You_ aren't, are you? Every generation acts towards us pretty much the same even when we are believed. There only are so many behaviour responses you can come up with! The Mortals of that village thought we Greeks were most entertainingly nuts with our funny way of dressing and talking and moving our hands to talk with them and our lightning bolt parlour trick just added to the fun! You were Christians with Christ inside of you and that really gave you more spiritual power than we had anyway and I doubt anyone in the village but maybe the Priest had any education about Greek mythology anyway. Few could read. So you did not know what we were, sir and we saw no reason to inform you. It didn't matter!" The suspect gave a sad little grin. "I got accused once by my Shrink of being either an Army Brat or the son of a Missionary. She was actually right on both counts. My Father is the god of war and tried to raise me with military discipline though I didn't take to it. That definitely makes me an Army Brat! And I'm the son of a Missionary too because my Mother is the goddess of love and she was always sending us out on missions of mercy trying to help you Mortals and trying to undo some of what her husband was doing to you. This was one of those times. So here, as was usual in that day and age we weren't seeking worship. We aren't allowed to any more since the Administration change. We were just there to try to save that one village from what was happening to the rest of Europe, thinking we at least had a chance _there!_ Just that one village! We failed miserably! We failed!" The man's voice rose with each "fail." He then continued with his voice strangely high pitched through exasperation.

"So we gods were running around chasing what the Villagers thought were fairly harmless Rats, trying to zap them with our lightning bolts and not getting a one. Wow! Those little Rodentia are fast! They can run under things and into the tiniest of cracks! We can't! We sure can run into each other though! It was gods 0. Mickey Mouse's bigger, less popular, Cousins 100%! At least we were giving the Mortals some high class entertainment, one last show! Also do you realise how flammable almost everything you Mortals made in the 14th century was? By the time Uncle Mercury managed to set Mr. McGreggor's barn on fire Uncle Vulcan figured there had to be a better way!

"Because my brilliant, wheelchair bound, slightly Autistic Uncle wasn't much help at first, in the sense that he was a whole lot less entertaining than the rest of us clowns. He could not chase after the Rats and put on as good a show for the Villagers. He could only sit in his chair and wait for one of the little pink eyed Beasties to come close enough for him to zap one, if one did, which they didn't. Rats may not be immortal but they aren't fools either! I am pretty sure they have more sense than a lot of Mortals do. I _know_ they have more sense than we gods do!

"But one of Uncle Mercury's miss-fired bolts set a pile of hay on fire instead and just like Mrs O'leary's Cow we had us a barn on fire and we and the not at _all_ happy Villagers spent the rest of the day putting that out and thank the Big God we at least succeeded in saving the rest of the town from at least becoming homeless! The fact it was on an isolated rock helped and Uncle Aeolus held his breath until he turned blue!" The man's voice started to come down from it's highness, and started to become more giggly than hysterical.

"Little, tiny Mr. McGreggor, shall we say, was a tad perturbed? All four feet of him came at my nine foot tall Uncle Mercury a hollerin' a blue streak! The air around him probably has not healed of its rip to this day! Uncle Mercury backed up and backed up and backed up until he was up against his house, and seriously considering oozing through its wall to get away! But that would have freaked the poor little Guy out too much! It was a Great Dane being seriously yapped at and bullied by a Chihuahua! The rest of us were as they say today, ROTFL. Literally!

"That got the many gears in my Uncle Vulcan's mind to turning and he on the spot invented that sonic repeller you Mortals later reinvented (all on you own by the way. Uncle Vulcan didn't bother to whisper in anybody's mind and give it to you). You didn't listen to loud music back then, so many could have heard it so to disguise the sound Uncle Apollo played his flute as a diversion and the Kids really enjoyed that and followed him around. He's a musician and eccentric as they always are due to their high dopamine levels so he's always been something of a funky dresser. That's where the legend of the Pied Piper came from."

Then the man got sad again. "So we thought we were successful. The Rats were gone. The morning after dawned Rat free. It was a beautiful morning too! We set to work trying to rebuild Mr. McGreggor's barn. Thessalonian Greek god jive is a very colourful language and I was still a very young adult god. I learned some new colourful metaphors that day because we kept hitting our thumbs! And a new phrase that is becoming popular now. 'What would Jesus do?' For once it wasn't His amazing moral character and PR talent we were admiring. We little g gods can tell you how He keeps controlling the expansion of the Universe after the Big Crunch without having the Power to actually be able to do it ourselves. But how He does it is no mystery to us. Some of us, my Grandfather Zeus also known as Jove and My Grandmother Hera also known as Juno, are some of the morning stars who were there watching from the very beginning because the company that first created my family as entertainment for you Mortals, (gods in a box incorporated), created my Grandparents in the future, so they predate the Big Crunch and Big Bang. And we also know how Jesus would have put up a much better barn than we were doing too! But knowing how someone does something and actually being able to do it oneself are two separate things! Because we just weren't very good Carpenters! So we were really speculating on what He would have done carpentry-wise and trying to do the same! My Pops had watched Him build some houses a few times and was giving us directions from that. But what we finally got up would only stay up because Uncle Aeolus promised never to breath on it!"

Lassiter was about to interrupt when the man continued. _Could this man stop talking? The story was starting to get a little ridiculous. _

"So we worked for two solid days and the morning of the third came. It was up. Uncle Aeolus promised to be _really_ well behaved so we hoped it would stay up. I was sucking my thumb. It hurt! No one was teasing me. Most of us gods were sucking our thumbs! And then Mr. McGreggor brought us huge clay mugs full of fresh, warm Cow's milks right from Bessie and started to thank us profusely for putting his barn back up and turned to apologise to my Uncle Mercury for cussing him out and then we saw what he had on his beautiful-ugly face! The town's first pockmark! We knew though he didn't! We _KNEW!_ Because they were so isolated they didn't even know what was happening in the rest of Europe!

"We knew what that damn spot on his face was! We fell to pieces! My Mom fainted! I had to catch her. I never saw my Uncle Vulcan curse like that before! The rest of us were jumping around and gesturing the way we Greeks do and hugging one another and just howling to the skies to the Bigger God!"

Trevor frowned. "In two more days all the village had it!

" In a few more day most of you were gone where the rest of Europe had went! You should have seen the looks on the faces of the death Angels! I had never seen them so tired and over-worked before! I didn't see them that way again until Hiroshima!"

The Prisoner sighed and bent his head down in sorrow and shook it. "A few days after that we helped show the remaining few who would become very rich inheriting what was left (not that they cared at that moment), how to burn the bodies so it didn't spread further. We helped of course."

He started sobbing again "And to this day without even realising why your little ones innocently sing (and it makes us gods shudder)

'"Ring around the Rosy!

A pocket full of posie.

Ashes! Ashes!

We all fall down!'"

He shook his head, "So no matter how much I would ever hate one of you I would never kill you! I would never have too! Always; I outlive you! I live forever! See generation after generation of you pass with the leaves of the trees falling to the dust like compost! Your operating systems rise to go where they go and they had better have been saved and debugged by your Maker first! Ghosts are miserable and the Sun will go BOOM someday, and soon! Quicker than you think it does! And the Universe goes Crunch again! Over and over and over again! All not safe inside your Mortal-keep, New Jerusalem...! What General Relativity does to your sense of time inside an imploding mass sir! Hell goes through many stages. None are fun!" The Prisoner shook his head. "No! Let each Mortal have his or her time under the Sun, sir! Please dance! Please live! Please taste life! Please savour it! Drink it down to its dregs! Please understand what a gift it is! Within reason I would never take it away from you!"

Lassiter had dozens more questions, but he could talk to the man no longer. He would be there all day if he did! Carlton decided his best move was to go and talk to the man's Shrink instead. _Maybe she might get to the point a little sooner._ Without any warning for the man, he turned and left the room with _all his unanswered questions. _

Claire looked tiny in the packed lobby. Dozens of People whizzed in front of her back and forth, but she took no notice of them and just sat on the edge of the bench talking to her Boss on her mobile. Her makeup failed to hide the fact that she had been crying. Without emotion Lassiter gestured Claire into the conference room.

She quickly said goodbye to her Boss and hung up. She took a seat at the long table. Lassiter took a seat opposite to her.

_There was nothing out of touch with reality about the suspect's description of his Shrink's level of attractiveness. She was incredibly gorgeous! Just as he had claimed if a Psychotic Mental Patient could be healed just by gazing upon a Therapist, this would be the one to do it!_ Lassiter flared his nostrils and tried to forgot he thought that. _With a Knock Out like that to pay attention to him why would he need to kill other Ladies? He had to be a real sicko! _

She jumped straight to the point, before Lassiter could get in there. She was shaking her head her head has she exclaimed, "He didn't do it!"

For Lassiter, this was one weird day and he only growled. "That's what they all say!"

"No! He didn't!"

"Who else could shoot well enough to do these?" Lassiter showed Claire the pictures of the victims Trevor would not look at, figuring since she was a Doctor; she could provide some input. He pointed out. "Some of them were shot from hundreds of feet away, each one of them right into the heart directly into the aorta each time or directly between the eyes! Or right into the vagina! Not one arrow went anywhere that was indicative that the person firing it didn't have incredible accuracy at his disposal." Lassiter was seething. "That is why we know your patient did it. No one else could possibly shoot like he can!" We were staking out archery stores. We knew he'd have to buy new equipment some time and we got lucky! Because your patient put on _such_ a show and gave himself away!"

The Lady winced in horror at sight of what the poor Victims had been through. She said quickly as she began to sob. "While my patient knows how to use a bow, he is not capable of this. I tested him for weeks, sir, every test we could give him both mental and physiological, EEGs while sitting relaxed and asking difficult questions and also mobile, projection tests, free association tests. I even Rorschached him! And he cooperated fully for each one and past with flying colours! I have observed him now for over five years under real World conditions, and I have hours of documented conversations. Trevor Pierce does not have the capacity to commit harm of this level!" Grimacing she slammed the horrible photos back on the table facing away from her. "Oh I know he is mischievous to the extreme. That is what got him cast out, ah, well I guess I am a little follie a deused. Of course he didn't really get cast down from Olympus! But it sure caused him to do the incident that brought him to our attention and got him under my care. He was responsible for the 2009 'How Holly I'm Here' New Year's Ball Drop change. Remember that?"

Lassiter abruptly snorted. "It woke me up!"

Claire nodded, "Me too! Most of the city! According to him, a good part of the near-galaxy eventually when the signals will reach it." Claire sighed. "But he doesn't harm Folks. Not even there. Even there he brought extra light bulbs in case he and the Man who was helping him broke any and all the Guards were found still on guard insisting no one had slipped past them. They had seen Trevor and talked to him for a few moments but insisted he didn't even try to slip by them, just made reference to it being a bright, sunny day and that was all they could remember. Far as anyone can tell he must have hypnotised them. The security cameras showed nothing and no one to this day knows how he did it but I have observed and observed and observed. He is the kind if he is walking down the hall of a Walmart and he sees stuff has been knocked off the shelf he will bend down and pick it up without even thinking about it. He risks his life in traffic to rescue Turtles, I mean, Tortoises. Turtles live in the water. He corrected me on that one."

"Please Dr. McCrae, what exactly is you patient suffering from? All you've told me is that while yes he is capable of using a bow and wouldn't use it like that, and I for one don't believe that, and that he likes Turtles! So please Doctor, what exactly is wrong with you patient?"

Claire sighed. "My Patient has a classic case of Dissociative Identity Disorder and I suspect his Host might have been a College Professor at one time. I have never been able to reach the Host, at least not with him admitting it, but I have suspected that he has been out without him admitting that I was actually talking to the Host. He was either too mischievous or too scared, one or the other, or both, to admit it. Trevor doesn't always act like a Greek god. In fact most of the time he doesn't. One thing I can tell you for certain, is that Trevor is definitely not a killer!"

She responded to Lassiter's still sceptical face. "Listen! Trevor lives in his own world most of the time. It's a harmless place!" Then Claire frowned correcting herself and shook her head. "Actually that's not correct. It's kind of hard to put it into words just what his mind state is but its beautiful, really! He lives in our World but fully and vividly remembers his. He interacts with reality amazingly competently for a patient so very sick and entrenched in his illness! I have heard him mentally juggle at least three separate concepts of reality at once and keep functioning in Reality Space while doing so. For Instance while in his Boss's apartment where he lives with minimal supervision he was doing his Boss's and his own private cooking and he had the phone cradled on his shoulder while discussing his Olympus delusion with me. Another Shrink who took an interest in him who is a fanatical Trekker (and amazingly so is Trevor) popped by while I was doing this and started discussing Star Trek, and darn it the speaker phone was on, deliberately I suspect, so I was overhearing this. They got to discussing details of Star Trek that resemble the nutty way baseball Fans give blow by blow plays. I really don't think it has to be that detailed Folks! These discussions about 'Klingon table manners: Are they really that good or bad as last night's newest episode portrayed them?' And such as that. But he kept talking to me too during all this about Olympus intermittently. I am going 'coo coo' myself trying to keep it straight! Then to top it off his Boss Felix walked in and my patient started cheerfully discussing plans for the upcoming Cinco De Mayo fantasy party he had planned for the bar to attract Customers that somehow involved a recreation of an ancient Incan sun dance to be performed by the Boss's Sister and himself in ancient Incan which he just happened to know, of course, his being Cupid! And he's fine with all this. So amazingly is the food he's cooking! I've had burned it from all the mental distractions he must have going on constantly in his head! The entire realm of the gods is up there inside of him somewhere! All the gods are really Trevor! Not to mention the social skills needed for all this. Because remember now he has two of his Shrinks and his Boss on him all at once. One would be enough to make most People nervous! But he's cool! He's just eating up all the attention! I know this because Dr Leo reported his facial expressions and body language to me later. As he puts it 'Trevor is a Psychotic work of art!'"

Lassiter touched his chin and thought. "Didn't they used to do Human sacrifices to the Sun god or something?

Claire sighed. "Yes but that wasn't in their Tres Equis's Cinco De Mayo celebration! I asked him about his opinion on Human sacrifices during his 90 day observation period. I make sure about these things! We _do_ know how to check a Patient for violent and sociopathic tendencies! Seems one of many reasons Jesus bravely volunteered to go to the cross was to put a slow but finally successful stop to all the Human sacrificing. The gods don't like it! They only tolerated and encouraged it with Animals if it lead to the meat being shared communal style later with the general population. The roots of welfare for the poor apparently. Ra hated it they did that for him and loves what Simon and Garfunkel did for him much better!"

Lassiter stared at her like _she_ was insane! "What did the Simon and Garfunkel do for _Ra?_"

"Popularized and kept from getting lost in time "El Condor Pasa."

"What? Look; don't answer that!"

But Claire did anyway, "Oh they put absolutely silly words to it. 'I'd rather be a flower than a tree' or some such silly nonsense like that. Silly silly words! But it was really "El Condor Pasa. Passage of the Condor' an ancient hymn to the Sun god, Ra who is the same Ra on both sides of the Ocean. Thor Heyerdale was right. There was cultural communication across the Atlantic!"

"But what about the Greek Sun god?" Lassiter knew he had to go back to the questioning about his prisoner's mental state and not mythology but apart from guns, this was one topic that Lassiter was surprised he was interested in.

Claire shrugged, "Cupid's, Uncle Helios? A bit on the chubby side. Side burns when in Mortal mode. Ironically wears sun glasses even when indoors. Both of these sun gods are monopoly addicts. The little g gods are elementary spirits. Ra and Helios and other sun gods are not the Sun itself but involved in its intelligent regulation. It seems there is not only Intelligent Design but Intelligent regulation of this Universe! " Claire sighed, "This patient has the most complicated delusional structure worked out I have ever seen to the point at times I am even wondering if it _is _delusional! He has an answer for everything! I have tried so many times to trip him up! Brought in Professors of obscure ancient languages and darn! He always knows them! Ends up teaching the Professors things they didn't know! I am half tempted to go to an archaeological dig somewhere and have him tell the Diggers where to dig! It would not surprise me if he could do so at least sometimes. But he has pointed out to me the little g gods only have selective omnipresence not total. So he couldn't pay attention to everything at once, just anything he wanted to."

Lassiter said exasperated. "Your patient has you twisted around his hand so well, that you are starting not to be able to decipher what is real and unreal yourself! He has you under his spell!"

Claire felt a little embarrassed and nodded admitting that she knew she was falling for him. "Maybe a little! Well probably _a lot!" _Then she suddenly burst out firmly, "But that does not make him a killer!"

Lassiter was getting ready to explode. But he then thought of a different tactic. "You said something interesting: 'all the gods are really Trevor.' Have you ever seen him be anyone else but Cupid?'

Claire swallowed as she realised where this was going_. She said in forced calm. _"No; I have not."

"That is all you know him as. Cupid the god of _love_ and his Clark Kent mode, Trevor, yet you admit he's a multiple personality. I am no way an expert of mental disorders; but is it possible he could have more in there? What and who he is to please his beautiful knock out of a Shrink, the god of LOVE, may not be all and always who he always is!"

Claire stared at Lassiter in horror! And gulped!

_What if he was right?_

Uncle Mercury Gets Advice from Hooty Owl

Uncle Mercury leaned against the door jam of Trevor's hotel room and stared out the picture window at the bay and rubbed his craggy chin, a thinking and a thinking. "Oh Papa Zeus if only you were wise like you used to be! Mama Hera! I need my Mama! Hooty! Anybody? Any ideas? I never had much success getting Eros to listen. But now the kid really CAN'T listen! The psychic veil is just too thick today. Just when I need to get through to him his high stress levels are thickening it! Can't even _this_ Mortal get it through his head what he needs is faith so he calms down enough and can hear us so we can provide guidance? He is in his isolation cell shouting at us, making himself look quite mad! Oh how nice that Mortals pray once in a while! But they need to realize it can go both ways even to Non-Schizophrenics despite Lilly Tomlin's little joke if they will just shut up! Calm down! And listen very very closely for and to our still small voice! Well actually this god at least is shouting his fool head off at his kid! But it's not my fault it comes across to their deafer than a doornail mind-ears as still and small! Or maybe the Pooh-Bear stuffing up there is continuing to leak out despite Claire's best efforts!"

The goddess of wisdom, Athena but called Hooty or Hooty Owl by most everyone who knew her well which was the entire little town of Olympus and most of Asgard waddled into the room. She blinked at the bright California Sun light and started off her conversation as if she had been there all along and didn't need to say "hello" because she was a bit Autistic like her brother Vulcan and that was just her way. "There's that psychic, Shawn who put on that bit of entertainment for your kid and soon to be Daughter in Law at the vid store."

"He's a bloomin' fake and a bigger idiot than my kid!"

"They are perfect for each other! Don't you know? And Trevor and Shawn are NOT idiots! Wipe that idea out of your lightning bolt, fried hard drive! They are brilliant! Brilliant! **Brilliant!** The both of them! Their childishness is from the same Autistic, Neanderthal genes we have by way of our Valkyrie, Norwegian Mother who had Neanderthal roots that make you a giant and make Vulcan and me the way we are! Eros and Shawn and Gus have amaygdalas the size of young Children! So naturally they function emotionally on a Child's level. The wonderful trade-off is that leaves LOTS more room for their thinking parts. Does that explain certain other things? So let them be Kids! They are supposed to be Kids! Will always be Kids! All smart People with bigger neo-cortexs are going to be Kids forever and ever! It's physiological due to their Kid-sized emotional brain parts. So quite besides this little mess which Trevor will weather, is supposed to weather, so he grows, they really do need each other for friends! Oh yes Shawn and Gus have each other but all three are severely lacking a village. It takes a village to raise an Adult too! And our poor Trevor has no one but his Shrink! Plus in this day and age his being Mortal and Shawn and Gus living on one coast of the US and our Favorite Son on the other is not that much a problem. The Mortal-presence they are developing, the Internet will let them stay almost as connected as we stay, bro. They are well on their way to becoming like us so they can make us, just as the Big Guy planned. All is preceding towards Omega-pointhood on sked and they will make the Big Crunch/Big Bang deadline able to handle what must be done again on time, as usual. Mortals have never failed us, not once in all Time's circlings! They never will! I have faith! But anyway go tell Shawn to tell Trevor and all necessary Mortals what you must tell them!"

Uncle Mercury shook his head, "You KNOW what the Big Guy said about consulting psychics, and this Guy isn't even a real psychic! He's a fake, a fraud! The Torah says he needs to be put to death!"

Hooty corrected, "And you know even more how Jesus feels about legalism! He rants and raves against it! Makes Him madder than anything when religion gets put in place of Love and simple kindness and common sense! Shawn _really_ tries to help People! He isn't doing what the psychics in the Old Testament did and what most psychics do today, even the ones with real connections to some very evil demons; collect money off of Folks without really giving them the services they pay for! And he doesn't get what he is getting from very real but questionable sources morality-wise on our side either. Most Doctors aren't as good a gamble! He will not and does not pretend to know anything he really doesn't find out for real or already know due to being three times the average IQ just like our Trevor! He just is doing it by ways he isn't allowed to admit to. The Cops backed him into a corner!"

Then Hooty was gone.

Uncle Mercury stared at where she had just been in disbelief. Not because she had just suddenly disappeared. He was used to that. But because of what she had just suggested! "Use a psychic!"

_Well! She wasn't the goddess of wisdom just because she was born by popping out of Papa __Zeus's head! (and come to think of it could that be where Zeus's wisdom went, so he started going around the bend at about that same time? It left him and went into his clone-daughter, Athena?_ (Uncle Mercury vowed then to check a very ancient calender and see if his two and two added up to four!)

Uncle Mercury left the hotel and walked his lanky body up the street and talked to himself, "Ay yi YI! Mortals and their darn creativity! We need to be born normally! This biz of us popping out of each other sometimes! Making copies of copies! Ay yi yi! Cloning is not the answer! Replicant failure and all that! Sex isn't just for fun! It provides extra DNA for a chance for repairs! Though this time it seems the clone took most of the good stuff with her! Trevor's mother coming out of Neptune! (But that worked out OK I guess). I am so glad my Grandkid is going to come right out of Claire Bear like a normal kid and be the product of sex! The Big God got it right the first time! Says so right in the myths she gets BORN and the myths always come true!"

Then Uncle Mercury danced up the street, "I am going to be a Grandpops! I am going to be a Grandpops! All I gotta do is get my kid out of the hoosegow, (again), and out of mental health care lock up, (third time!) If I didn't have those scriptures saying I am going to be a Grandpops I'd give up on him! Faith is what is keeping me going here! 'Consult a psychic!' Indeed! Oh but Shawn, you fraud! You have pretended to hear us for years! Here comes the real stuff! Are you ready! No! Of course not! But like the Beatles said, 'Life is what happens while you were waiting for something else!'"

If you Pretend to be A Psychic Too Many Times...!

Uncle Mercury stared at the back of Shawn's head. He felt the connection take! _Finally he was getting through to a Mortal! Egads! The Man really was at __least a little psychic for real! He could have easily used this Guy as a Host if he'd wanted to_ _voluntarily or even involuntarily! It was wise of __Shawn that he had never really tried to be a REAL psychic. It is a dangerous thing to play with fire and living energy beings are the most dangerous kind of ***FIRE***!_

****It was a full Moon when the Archer first struck. Armed only with a concealing dark green cloak, a bow and a quiver full of exactly 12 arrows.

He went hunting. He had been stalking a number of Women who he deemed as 'not deserving' and he went out to put them right!

It was early evening when he stopped behind a bush as he saw a beautiful dark haired Woman walking her Labrador, he slid behind a big Eucalyptus tree where he could get a better look. The Labrador sensed someone was there, he stopped and growled, a low menacing tone ripped from his chest.

"What's wrong, Lyle?" The Blonde asked. He had never done anything like this before. Terror started to seep into the Woman as she held her Dog who was baring his teeth. "Hello?" She called weakly out.

The Archer didn't fancy his chances at such close range. He could fire from afar, but he _hated_ Dogs!

The Woman was surprised when Lyle, her Dog, stopped growling and went back to normal. His tail wagging. He knew what he'd just saved his Mistress from!

Terrified, the Woman got out her phone and called her Boyfriend to come and pick them up from the nearest point possible. She had no idea what she'd been saved from.

It was unfortunate for poor Mandy Wallar. She had no way to have known what was coming.

She too had been jogging in the early evening by herself. But she had no Dog to protect her. The Archer caught sight of her and could not resist the chance. He lifted up his bow and pulled one of his sleek, inch thick, wood arrows. It was about a foot long with colourful, plumage on the end. He fit it into his modern version of a recurve bow. It was easily constructable and could be taken apart quite easily to fit inside a duffle bag.

As Mandy jogged past him, he lifted and aimed.

Mandy heard nothing as the arrow flew through the air. She may only have felt the initial entry of the arrow. But as it tore through her fast beating heart, and exited through her rip cage, she had fallen on the ground. Dead and still. Her blood poured out from the holes in her back and chest and mixed into the dirt.

Knowing the Girl was dead, the archer turned and left.

Lassiter had been enjoying himself cleaning his gun in the early morning. He couldn't sleep and when he couldn't sleep, he played with his beloved gun; a Ruger P89.

He was slightly irritated when his phone rung. Grumbling he put his gun gently down and picked up the phone. "Hello? This is Detective Lassiter speaking."

"Lassiter, I need you here immediately!" It was Karen Vick, the Chief of the Santa Barbara Police Department.

"No problem Chief. What do we have?"

"A shooting."

"My favourite." Lassiter may have felt slight guilt over the fact that he was excited with the idea would get to play with guns.

"No you won't believe this, Carlton. This is not a shooting with guns, this is a shooting with an arrow!"

"An arrow? What kind of nut shoots another Person with an arrow? Are we dealing with Robin Hood, are we?" His question was laced with sarcasm.

"Carlton, this isn't time for games! A 23 year old Girl was killed was night, while she was jogging. I need you here immediately."

"I am already sliding in my car now." Lassiter grumbled again.

Lassiter stood in front of the morgue gurney. The pretty Girl was the colour of stone and twice as cold. She lay still with her blonde hair spreading like one would expect Octopus' tentacles to do.

Woody, the Coroner, stood over with a lollypop in hand. "Well, judging but the gapingness of this hole here, on her chest, I'd say the shooter was standing back about two meters."

Lassiter nodded. While he hadn't done that much archery, he had messed around with some as a Kid. "Well, I doubt he, the shooter, would have used anything past a modern recurve. I'm guessing the suspect would have been hiding, and if he was hiding, he would have had to have a smallish bow to be able to manoeuvre without causing distractions."

"I think you are correct. If the guy, and it might not have been, was hiding with a small bow, he might have been able to shoot it. There is no other struggles signs and the only marks are ones consistent with the poor Girl's fall. If you look here," he gestured to a small scrape on her left knee with his lollypop, "I'd say that was a rock."

"Well, I'm going to check out the murder scene. Don't talk or let in any press. You wait for me on that." Woody nodded and the lollypop bobbed in his mouth.

"We could always call in Sh..." Lassiter cut him off.

"And NO ONE calls Spencer!" Lassiter stormed off leaving Woody a little bewildered. On one hand he didn't wanted to be fired on the other had was loyal to Shawn who had helped him many times.

Choosing Shawn, he pulled out his phone and dialled.

That night a more sinister act was committed by the Archer. As young 20 year old Mia Batt was walking home in a huff, the Archer stalked her. She was crying because she had just found her best friend in the lap of her previously engaged Boyfriend. Poor Mia didn't notice that she had strayed off the path. The Archer followed silently. Despite the intense sadness Mia felt, she sensed that something was wrong. Mia tried to calm herself down as terror started to consume her. It was a stick that the Archer accidentally stood on, that alerted Mia to the real danger. She ran!

Mia soon found herself hopelessly lost in the woods/park as she continued to stumble on roots and choke on bile. If she could concentrate she could hear the Archer's footsteps. She couldn't hold it in any longer.

Mia Batt let out the loudest, piercing scream that she had ever made in her 20 years. _Hopefully someone will hear that! _And they did; but not the one she hoped. Mia couldn't believe the pain she felt as the arrow pierced her thigh. She screamed again as she heard someone tell her to "shut up!".

In frustration, the Archer shoot one in the most vile, disgusting places one could ever think to hurt a Woman; her vagina.

From the shock of that; Mia's heart stopped.*****

Gus stared at Shawn who had stopped dead in his tracks frozen almost like a statue on his way back from the grocery store, a bag of fresh vegetables in his left arm, his right hand outreached to grab the door knob. _And there he stood with his hand out __reached but not taking it for over two minutes! It was like he had gone catatonic or something, except he had the most surprised look on his face! _

Gus's brown eyes grew wide. He didn't dare say anything. But finally he did. "SHAWN!"

No response!

He snapped his fingers in front of his Friend's face.

Again, no response!

Gus was about to go into full panic mode and dial 911. But while he was at it Shawn finally returned to Earth. "Odds Bodkins, Gus! I just had a real vision!"

Gus was hurt his Friend was trying to put one over on HIM! "That isn't funny!"

"No it isn't!" Shawn was as pale as a sheet! "I just had a _real vision! _And I know who the killer is! It definitely isn't that, " 'Cupid' guy we met at the video store like almost everyone thinks!" Shawn made quote marks with his fingers. "His Shrink is right! He's innocent! Though maybe she's wrong about him being nuts 'cause maybe he _is_ Cupid. I never had anyone on the other side (because obviously now there must really be another side) send me a real vision before! Trevor or Cupid or whoever definitely didn't do it! Oh Gus! It was our nemesis from the video store! Will! I think he thinks he's Robin Hood or something!"

Gus continued to have eyes wide as saucers. "Now I know you've gone nuts!"

For a White Guy Shawn's eyes were pretty wide too! "No! He did it! But how do I prove it!"

Gus sighed and shook his head, frowning, staring at his Friend, checking him for signs of lunacy _(as if he knew what to look for!)_. "Well if you are serious and haven't just gone totally freakin' insane which is a high possibility you go in and tell everyone you are a psychic and you know from your psychic powers that the guy from the video store did it. It always worked before!"

Shawn pouted and shook his head, "No, Gus! I always pulled that scam on little things, then I was able to prove it quickly with hard evidence. But now this is a BIG thing that involves getting someone locked up and convicted of several murders and another very innocent and gentle person who has been wrongly convicted (and it is killing him), freed from those convictions, and we haven't a shred of any real, hard, concrete evidence! No one is going to believe me and let Trevor out or arrest Will! All this did for us is let me know how very hard we have to work to free Trevor! And I have to keep calling him Trevor even though now I suspect the truth is he really is Cupid because it must have been his family who sent me this vision!"

"Ah, huh!" Said Gus not really believing his Friend for once and suddenly very worried about him! His intelligent brown eyes grew wide with worry and he wondered if he needed to call someone. He thought. _My Friend's Mother is a Psychiatrist. Do I __have her number somewhere?_

But Shawn was already rushing into the house getting ready to contact Trevor's Psychiatrist, scratching his head, trying to figure out what to to do next!

Help From a Unexpected Places

Dr. Claire McCrae walked down the hallway of the Santa Barbara Police station headed back to her hotel not knowing what else to do! Her sky blue eyes were moist with tears and red with sleep deprivation even her highly skilled use of makeup could not hide!_ She had waited hours and they would not even let her see Trevor! They had him in solitary confinement!_ _That would not be good for his mental health! Not good at all! She knew the few times he had been in solitary in the mental hospital he had resorted to loud talking to his family which only made him seem crazier, and if it had been allowed to continue for long he would have soon gotten really crazier! Here there was no given end in sight for his being allowed out into the general population of Inmates. What else was her sociable lunatic to do but resort to his inward family? His IQ was over 300 at least. The IQ tests had been inadequate to measure his capacity and all that mental power provided more than enough RAM for more than one Personality. So no wonder he had formed more than one Operating System! Now with no one else to talk to he no doubt would __form more or dredge up old ones he had not had to consult in years just to have someone to talk to! Oh my! Was this gentle mind in trouble! _

_Why with all that mind power hadn't he had the sense not to go near a bow and arrows? Oh but it __was obvious he had only meant to target shoot in a_ _sports store! Brilliant or not he was not Cassandra by his own admission though he claimed this so-called future-telling relative lived near them in __Mortal form in a Psychiatric Hospital in Manhattan, and he visited her sometimes by bus! __(Too bad you hadn't consulted her before this trip, __"Cupid!") But of course you really coul_dn't be _expected to know the future! Brilliant or not there is no way you could have realized simply target shooting in a sports store would get you in so much __trouble! It did seem a harmless way to pass the afternoon until your "Claire Bear" got back from her medical conference. I can see how you really were trying to keep out of trouble, poor dear!_

She wiped a tear from her eye and was about to go out the door of the Police station when she literally bumped into the same idiot, fake psychic who had irritated her earlier that week! He was coming in just as she was going out.

Shawn gave Dr. Claire McCrae a big sunny grin, snapped his fingers and said quickly, "Just the one I am looking for! My powers told me your weird friend is in trouble! I am here to help!"

She frowned and shouted at him, "Oh no you _don't!_" I don't need you to make things far worse for him with your crazy, fake psychic act!"

Shawn said grandly, "I'll have you know I have helped the Santa Barbara Police department solve copious crimes! Dozens of them! I have made the papers and the television so many times innumerable it is a wonder you have not heard of me all the way up there in New York City!"

Claire's eyes blazed with fury! _This man's eyes had the look of a True Believer or a blasted con Artist! She wasn't sure which! Under normal circumstances such pathology would have been __fascinating, but__she had no appetite for it now! If she'd been armed at that moment Shawn would have been dead! _

Woody just happened to be coming down the hall at that moment. The truth was he wasn't "just happening" to be doing so at all. Though he did not know it he had Uncle Mercury staring at the back of his neck and was being driven there by that very determined red headed, lanky and tall deity. Uncle Mercury had to bend way down just to reach the back of his neck! But Woody just thought he had a sudden urge to get a hot pastrami on rye from the deli across the street! _He had never felt so hungry in his life__!__ He had to __feed__ right then! __It was like he was a Vampire and hot Pastrami was blood and he hadn't sunk his fangs into a sandwich since the last __full Moon! __Strangely enough the minute he reached the lobby the raging hunger completely left him and all he wanted to do then was butt in on the conversation and convince this new suspect's Shrink that Shawn was a legitimate force for good! __He turned in an eye-twinkle from being Sandwich Vampire to Buttinski! _So he spoke up, "He has, Miss! He sure has!"

Claire said, "It's Doctor, not Miss. And I don't believe in Psychics!"_  
><em>

Woody said, "Well believing in him or not, it's true! He has helped People many times, and it's not like he will charge you anything if he doesn't succeed. Can you say the same thing?"

Claire was surprised at that. She stared at him for confirmation.

Shawn nodded, "Not one blessed penny unless I solve the case!"

Claire was caught off guard. Amazed she admitted, "I can't say that Ido!"

Shawn said, "It's settled then! I will find a way to prove Trevor Pierce, alias Cupid innocent of these heinous crimes and while I am at it I will determine who the real murderer is!"

"Why are you doing this?" Claire asked.

Shawn grinned, "Why do you do what you do?"

Claire's jaw dropped, "Because it's my profession."

"But why is _that _your profession?"

She thought about it a moment. "I want to help People! I am fascinated by the Human mind and what can go wrong with it and how to make it better!"

Shawn nodded, "I too am a student of Humanity and our mental states and want to make them better but I do it in my own less than orthodox way. It is a long story how I came to do it this way."

Claire gave him a sweet and not very professional grin, "I would love to hear _that_ story!"

Shawn said nervously, "Ahhh! I bet you would! Well maybe sometime, after this little affair is solved! Now! No time should be wasted! Your friend is suffering!" Shawn raised his hand over his head as if he were carrying a sword and charged out the door, "I am off!"

Claire got a glazed look in her eye. "That is my professional opinion too!"_She rolled her eyes at the Heavens again begging the Universe for sanity! Minus the Cupid delusions this one could have been another Trevor!_

Meanwhile Lassiter stood a little further up the hallway frowning. _Obviously the man's Psychiatrist was too much under her very weird __P__atient's spell to give an accurate assessment of the Man's tendencies towards violence. He needed a much less biased psychiatric opinion! _Lassiter thought a moment. Then a slight smile crossed his face. He remembered something. _Madeline's Spencer was in town. What a perfectly wonderful coincidence! Maybe there WAS some justice in the Universe after all!_ He whipped out his cell phone and searched for her number, smiling grimly.

Lassiter Gets Soaked For Some Fiber.

Lassiter headed back to the crime scene of the last Girl to have one more check because he just had a feeling in his gut that he was missing _something_.

His large boots stomped twigs and leaves underfoot. The sound of the twigs breaking was so loud in the silence of the deserted path, that it made Carlton feel like he was the last man on Earth.

"You know, that might actually work for me." He muttered aloud, "no more Spencer at least."He was talking out loud more to hear something above the desolate silence that seemed to consume everything. _As much as he hated noise, Lassiter felt the silence was almost to eery to be true. _

On he walked. The sun broke through the trees and shined down on his face, so he put his sunglasses on. He loved the outdoors, but only if he was in control of it.

Some time had past through hiking when he had the urge to mumble to himself "At least it isn't raining."

Uncle Mercury and Uncle Vulcan were watching. They looked at one another. They nodded. Uncle Mercury said, "I'll see if Papa is up to it."

Zeus sat at the very top of the virtual part of Mount Olympus in his palace gazing out at the oh-so-blue virtual Mediterranean, a body of water designed for Olympus by Walt Disney billions of years in the Future right before the Universe collapses inwards on itself and the shoe box sized god-keep of Olympus has to ride out the Big Crunch. Sea Gulls danced and darted amongst the puffy white clouds in and out of the Greek columns that were holding up the roof. They laughed their happy Sea Gull cries of joy to one another as they road the winds like Surfers riding waves, and that same loving Wind ruffled Papa Zeus's long, flowing white hair. That wind was his son, Aeolus loving him, trying to keep him in the here and now. His Wife Hera sat nearby on a marble block of stone, playing on a ten stringed lyre, borrowing that idea from King David as to how to keep her husband soothed. It had worked to calm a very disturbed Mortal named Saul many thousands of years ago and it seemed to be working here to calm the often psychotically angry and confused god. His dark eyes stared at the Gulls and at his wife. _He was very definitely with them! _He smiled the family smile and there was a hint of the old, powerful but very gentle Zeus in that smile, the god he had once been a few hundred years past!_ The sun had come out on the weather god's face! _Hera smiled back at her husband. Tears glistened in her eyes as she remembered how he had been once and almost seemed to be again for a few moments. _There were times when it is great to be a god and goddess! _

Suddenly Mercury was there. He could move that fast.

"Father?" He said, "It is I, your son, Hermes."

Zeus stared at his son. "Hermes it is? Forgive me my confusion. I have so many sons! All of them so extremely strong and handsome!"

"I was the one who stole the cows!"

"Oh! That one!" Zeus's wizened old face lit up in a grin. _He would never forget that cute little newborn tyke who his very first day of existence had stolen a whole herd of Cows from an exasperated Mortal, then gotten back in his cradle and acted oh so cute and innocent he got away with it...until he made an early proto-banjo out of a Turtle shell and made up a song to brag about his miss-deed! But he was still so cute everyone let him get away with it! _

Uncle Mercury nodded, "Yup. I was just trying to do what Jesus did; get myself born in a barn! But oh well! Dad would you make it rain in a particular spot in the woods in Santa Barbara?" Uncle Mercury flashed his Father a mental snap shot of the spot.

There would have been a time when Zeus would have immediately started asking a ton of questions, none of which Uncle Mercury wanted to answer! But say this for Snake Root, the plant from which we get the anti-psychotic Thorizine. It sure is calming! It had the Greek god of weather chemically strait-jacketed enough he forgot to ask all the questions he would have asked!

Instead Zeus waved his mighty hand.

Lassiter had only gone a hundred meters when the sky seemed to darken as if to tease him. Then it started to downpour and he became soaked to the gills in less than a minute!"Oh come on!" Lassiter started to turn and head back to his car but it was so dark from the storm he couldn't even find the path! Grumbling and swearing a little, he turned back around hoping he was on it.

Splash!

He wasn't!

He extracted his right foot which was now very muddy, and his very expensive shoe from the two foot hole that had been hidden underneath the flood of water. His mood was darker than the sky!

.

He hurried in what he hoped was the direction of his car with his head down to keep the rain out of his eyes, thinking over the case. _What a crazy case! _"I'm dealing with a Clown, a medieval "hero" and a Greek god! How did I get _here?_" Carlton pondered to himself. "And where did l do wrong to deserve this drenching? And to top it off I _know _I am missing something – deep down in my gut I _know_ I am missing an important part of the puzzle!" He stopped to wipe the rain off his forehead. "Oh that's right! I remember now, I was going to watch that "Robocop" marathon." Lassiter realized he was straying off his path again – both physically and metaphorically. He pushed the silly thought from his mind, amazed that he had had that thought in his head. "After this, I think I am going to go watch "Troy."

But alas Thorizine and Snake root have a side effect. They make some Patients very, very sleepy! It had that effect on Zeus. As Hermes and Hera watched and indeed as Vulcan watched even though he was still in his wheel chair floating over "Sherwood Forest" back in Santa Barbara, their mighty weather god just plain fell asleep. Hera breathed a sigh of relief. (Hermes had other feelings on that subject!)

Lassiter was only caught in the downpour for 5 minutes before the sky miraculously cleared up. With the sun suddenly bright again, no more did the clouds restrain the sun. In fact every single cloud was completely gone! Lassiter halted and gazed at the sky "Hmpth! That was really odd!" 

Then something unnaturally colored glinted in the sun light and caught his attention from the corner of his eye. "Well, well! What do we have here?" Carlton took out gloves, tweezers and an evidence bag, and carefully picked up the red cloth fibers from the spindly Agava Americana that must have grabbed at who ever had left it. Lassiter got even more excited when he realized that he was only meters from the kill spot. _This was no coincidence! _

He chortled, "No more Spencer hocus pocus, now we have _real _evidence! Now this needs to be lab tested!" He smiled and looked at the sky. It was if it 'helped' him find the fibers. "Oh get real Carlton!" He picked up his things and left.

Uncle Mercury knew quite a few colorful metaphors in thousands of languages. He used quite a bit of that supply! He glared at his brother Helios whose Human part was busy at that moment cleaning his house's roof gutter!

The Greek Sun god shrugged, "Sorry! What can I say? I goofed! I'm only a god, not Superman!

Lassiter used his phone to call Forensics and then made his way back to his dark blue patrol vehicle _– this could be the feeling that he knew was off. Or maybe not."There's still oddness in this." _

Jesus and Clarence, Angel First cCass were also watching. Clarence asked, "But won't those fibers incriminate your Little Mirror?"

Jesus smiled smugly. "Wait and watch the Master Plotsmen Plot! I have more tricks up my sleeve than there were grains of sugar that poor Burton Guster ate! Oh my! Did We have fun inside of him these last few weeks! But oh my are We going to pay for it now! And poor Shawn doesn't know it: (Some psychic!) Delayed damage! _His_ dental appointments are coming!"

Clarence giggled.

One Stuffed Shirt Studies Another

It had taken a while, but Lassiter had finally gotten the lab to test the clothing fiber he had found in the woods and was now observing through the observational window as the Forensic laboratory Assistant placed the fibers he found under the microscope. He ground his teeth because the Man was going so slow. He pushed his hair back. And the Assistant only twiddled a few knobs.

"Come on!" he mumbled to no one in particular. Lassiter was an impatient Man at best and just when they had the evidence that could potentially nail a suspect – he was not going to sit around and wait for the Grass to grow.

The Laboratory Assistant, as if sensing the Head Detective's frustration, looked nervously over his shoulder It was only his third week and he didn't want to get into trouble by the Man or Detective Dipstick as he had become to be known by the Public and lower staff behind his back.

Suddenly, as if appearing out of no where, Woody appeared.

"Hmmm, what do we have?" The bald, kind of creepy Coroner said. He was wearing his normal white lab coat as usual.

Lassiter tried to avoid eye contact. "Clothing fibers I think they are from the killer of Mandy Waller and Mia Batt."

"Those poor Girls! It's a shame really, so much to live for but just out of the blue..." He shook his head out of the gutter. "Someone deserves to pay for this!"

"They will!" Lassiter's head raised up and he looked Woody in the eye smirking. "This little evidence, found by yours truly, will put that psycho Trevor Pierce back in the loony bin. One less Nut off the street!"

It was then Woody's turn to look his Co-worker in the eye. He spoke sincerely. "You don't honestly believe dear old Trevor did it, do you?"

"Look at the facts. Everything points to him."

"Really? Like what?"

"Well." Carlton thought for a moment. "He is, for one a released Mental Patient."

"And can that argument alone really determine someone's fate? Can I for example be charged with this killing?" Woody challenged Carlton.

"Are you telling me that you are a released Patient?" Lassiter challenged, but Woody seemed unfazed. He put his hand up to his ears and and wiggled them while dancing.

"Good grief! Don't you have any dignity left, Man!" Lassiter was almost disgusted at the Man before him.

"I am a particular type of Person, Carlton."

"Yeah – crazier than crazy paving gone wrong."

Woody grinned. "I like that expression!" He stuck his tongue out. Very akin to the famous photograph taken in 1951 by Arthur Sasse of Albert Einstein on his 72nd birthday. "But I prefer the one that goes 'I am colourful, not crazy.'"

"You are an absolute loon!" Lassiter was disgusted now.

"Maybe I am – but at least I can do this," he jumped as if playing with a skipping rope, "and it would be normal for me." He smiled. "Though, what really constitutes "normality". It is an abstract noun that has yet to be defined by anyone."

Lassiter looked relieved when he saw the Assistant had finished. He burst inside the lab to get away from the quirky Coroner more than anything.

"So?" he was excited.

"Red cotton shirt. Good material." The Assistant said nervously.

"That's all you've got!" He was slightly dismayed. Had he really gone through that entire conversation to hear that?

"Well, yeah. What do you want me to do? I am not a clothing expert." The Young Man could just feel that Pink Slip being in his pigeon hole.

"Do you know where it was made?"

"I dunno. It's not the greatest stuff. Maybe China?"

"China?"

"Yeah. You have just ruled out maybe, I dunno, 10% of People?

"Hey, not my fault, Man."

"No, it isn't." Then something suddenly occurred to the Detective. _The suspect sitting in the interrogation room was wearing a red cotton shirt! _Suddenly with renewed excitement, Lassiter strode out of the room. He paused before walking outside, not seeing Woody there made him breath a sign of relief.

The Tooth, the Whole Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth!

Dr. Madeline Spencer waited for the suspect to be brought in. She knew that he was the main suspect in a series of killings and man about to brought into her would be big, tough. It would be her job to be able to decide if this was the killer – if this man had what it took to brutally murder a number of young women in a heinous way. There was evidence against him – including witness reports and other materials that could prove him to be the sociopath he was claimed to be.

She cleared her head with thoughts of her son. She would have to get in contact with him while back in Santa Barbara – it would be wrong not too. She had been away from him for a while and he might not be able to talk to her well after she left him again.

Madeline also knew that her son and this suspected murderer had met – that would certainly make this interesting. She shuffled her papers at the sound of the doorknob turning. She turned around to face the suspected murderer.

Buzz brought the suspect in. He seemed calm but very sad and frightened, he sat where and when he was told and never took his eyes off of her. Amazingly they seemed like hungry eyes but eyes hungry for help not to cause a Woman harm. Buzz stood by the hallway in case the suspect tried anything.

Madeline Spencer would have believed those seemingly very gentle eyes if she hadn't known more: they had gotten a search warrant for his room back in Queens, New York. What they had found there in the drawer beside his nightstand had been damning! She would use the gruesome evidence now to try to shock a confession out of him! "Explain these please. Are these the souvenirs you keep of you Victims? She poured a little leather bag of Human teeth out on the table under his nose!

Trevor looked at the teeth and actually started laughing in relief. "Oh those! Those I can explain! There is a VERY innocent explanation for THESE and forensics will exonerate me! They..." He started laughing hysterically. _He was extremely worried and very, very lonely and scared so this bit was just a little ridiculous even to him and he __couldn't__ hold the giggles in._

Madeline's mouth turned a thin line – but she didn't let her thoughts be easily read. Instead she pressed on. "Please – explain, Mr. Pierce."

He said with a hint of his former, pre-incarcerated mischief. "These aren't from any Victims. I haven't killed anyone. Would you believe I got these playing poker with the Tooth Fairy?"

_God! My son knows how to meet people. _She thought. But she kept her head and continued. "You played poker with the Tooth Fairy?"

Trevor gave a kind of sad grin. "Well not the real Tooth Fairy. Believe me! I've met him and this Guy doesn't even look like him! But he thinks he is and we 'Mental Patients' sort of had a reciprocal agreement. We'd believe or pretend to believe one another at least socially so while we played poker and were locked up together he was the Tooth Fairy to me and I truly was Cupid the god of Love to him. But the real Tooth Fairy is two feet taller than he is."

Dr. Spencer was a little skeptical of this fact. "Two feet TALLER? Is that a fact?"

Trevor nodded, "Well, the real Tooth Fairy is a Pooka. They get quite large. But anyway this Fellow is a Dentist who freaked out one day, (no doubt all the mercury he got exposed to) and took out all his last Patient's perfectly good teeth involuntarily and started raving he had a whole castle full of them and so they quite naturally locked him up for that. They let him keep his advertising gimmick of giving out fake teeth because it calmed him down. But I decided to get them all away from him by playing crooked poker because if he was forced to start playing for real money and using real money as currency for other things, gee whiz! He'd seem a whole lot more normal! He was trying to pay for everything with fake teeth! Even stuff the hospital was giving him for free, even his calm down medication! Then when he was asleep the Staff was sneaking his fake teeth back to him but I didn't think that was such a good idea! I won most of them by dealing off the top of the deck!"

She smiled in spite of herself. "A Pooka... like Harvey was?" A funny memory of young Shawn popped into her head of when he once pretended to have a Pooka friend named Harvey too. Having her eidetic memory enabled her to remember every word of the whole game. _Oh how funny he was then. _She smiled again.

Trevor nodded completely sincerely. "A Pooka as Harvey _is._ You Mortals make him for real in the Future just as you make a lot of us Fictionals, and Time circles and Fairies are given immortality too just as us gods and you Mortals yourselves. They were given their own charming little Fairy keeps all over our gorgeous Planet. Now I am sure you as a modern Mortal probably wonder what the real Tooth Fairy does. He doesn't collect teeth from under pillows of course. But he serves his purpose in the ecological system same as all Living Beings do. Sometimes Kids need a little help getting rid of their primary teeth. When they do they always pray. Always one way or another. Then a signal goes out from the Big Guy and the Tooth Fairy or one of his Putios is called in to assist same as my Mother or I do when Beings of various kinds have trouble falling in love." The Suspect smiled.

Madeline was amazed. _There was no doubt this poor __M__an believed this wild story!_

The Suspect continued. "But anyway, as for Harvey, down through the ages Harvey has had a lot of Hosts and loved every single one of them and vice-verse. The Authoress of the original stage play is one of those. But anyway your Forensics Team will find these are fake teeth so I have proof of innocence here at least."

Madeline nodded slowly, shifting the various thoughts and memory out of her brain that had been popping in and out.__ She made a note to check with Dr. Claire McCrae about the possibility of there being such a Patient and such poker games and of course for Forensics to check those teeth! Because of her job – she'd always been around quirky and whimsical ____P____eople, her ____S____on being one. But this ____M____an definitely took the cake! __

Trevor added helpfully, "Maybe you could charge the hospital with running an illegal gaming establishment and me with being an accessory to the crime?" He flashed a charming smile at her.

Madeline laughed tentatively, "I think we'll pass on that!"

Trevor grinned at her mischievously again. Beautiful Women always brought that out in him.

She stared at him considering and he stared hopefully back. His dark eyes were gentle and pleading. __What a puzzle this one was!____If he was some kind of a literal lady killer it was well hidden! But then he was supposed to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. There still could be a killer hidden somewhere inside of him!__She tilted her head and asked, "Do you ever feel something inside of you force you to do things you don't want to do?"

His charming demeanor vanished. He frowned and nodded, "Yes! Constantly! All the time!"

She frowned and thought sadly. _There it is – there __is his big secret._ "Explain please, Mr. Pierce."

He sighed and ran his hand through his short dark hair. "Ever since I became Mortal it's been disgusting! Burping! Farting! Coughing! Barfing makes me want to, well, barf! Sneezing and hick-upping are kind of fun but ohhhh what has to go on in bathrooms! Yuck!" He made a face like a little Kid. "While there's some literal toilet humor there, between you and me – it's gross!"

She snorted with unexpected giggles. "That wasn't what I meant. Hmmmm. I mean, do you ever suddenly find yourself somewhere you hadn't expected to be?"

He shrugged, "Yes, again, constantly! But only metaphorically when I get in conversations with Claire! " He smiled and said to himself more than her in almost a whisper. "We go to many amazing places you couldn't even comprehend..." His voice trailed off and he was lost in thoughts.

"And Claire is...

"My/your Psychiatrist, the one who keeps crying her eyes out there in the lobby." They pretty much said it together.

She nodded. "She believes in you."

He nodded too. "I know! That is what is holding me together right now!"

She frowned and nodded grimly. __Darned if maybe he didn't have other lethal ones but __**_this_**__ personality sure ____wasn't____ a killer! And that would be heart rending! This gentle soul would have to pay for whatever others in this same body had done! What a conundrum and a puzzle DID is medically, ethically AND legally! All she knew for certain was____that the man in front of her – the personality in front of her, at least could not kill. It was almost as if he was the adult version of the innocent but mischievous Cupid of mythology! And at the same time His eyes showed he was an old, old soul, and yet somehow forever young! He could have been a ____modern painting by Raphael!__

_Cupid stared at her hopefully.___ In this one the psychic veil was thin. Was he getting through to her? Was she seeing the real HIM?__

_Dr. Spencer began to gather up all her documents and the like and carefully placed them in her bag. _She said gently, "Goodbye, Cupid, l hope all is set well." Trevor handed her the bag of teeth that he had scooped delicately into their little velvet draw string bang. With a final look at the supposed killer she left the room.

She made quote marks with her fingers and said to Lassiter who had been watching her from the other side of a two way mirror. "'Cupid' didn't do these murders." She tossed him the bag of teeth. "These are most likely fake. Our 'Cupid' is most likely at most a card shark who gamboled with 'the Tooth Fairy!' Another Patient he was locked up with, a retired Dentist who once used these as advertising samples and was allowed to keep them after he went over the edge! But not after (She rolled her eyes), 'Straight Ace Eros' got them away from him with a few rounds of Texas Hold em!"

Lassiter glared at her. He flared his nostrils and gritted his teeth. _There only suspect was not capable of such a crime! Well he __was not going to release him!__ That was as certain as that the man was not really a god! The public would panic and despite the constitution, guilty or innocent it did not matter. Due to the __M__an's mental condition he could hold him on grounds he was mentally unstable and they were waiting for a suitable bed at a proper facility to treat him, and glory be! That could take months since they __didn't__ have a proper diagnoses and __wouldn't__ until he was committed, and they could not commit him properly until they had a diagnoses. The poor __M__an was caught in a vicious circle! _Lassiter grinned bitterly at the irony of that!_ But he knew better than anyone to try to prove Madeline wrong on the __Man's__ innocence since she was the one who had done his psychological assessment and knew more about his inner thoughts than anyone. _He sighed and went off to report to chief Vick.

As he did so Woody came running towards him from the other end of the hall grinning and waving a red piece of cloth like a victory prize, "Lassiter! Forget bothering about a few threads! I just found the entire shirt!"

"What?" Lassiter was impressed, "You did! Where?"

Woody smiled, "I tried to think like our killer. I suspected he wouldn't like it that he ripped his nice shirt. I suspect he's a bit OCD as many serial killers are and he would throw the entire thing away somewhere. So I just inspected the stuff we pulled out of the dumpster that was nearest to the scene of the crime a bit earlier. I wasn't planning to get to it until tomorrow but because you found those fibers I worked through my lunch hour instead of waiting. Sure enough!"

"Lassiter was actually impressed! "Good work, Woody! Let's see it!"

Woody handed him the shirt._I__t was a grizzly thing, covered in __blood__ stains! _Lassiter shuttered despite his many years of being a Cop.

Woody asked, "How in the world did he get it so covered in his Victim's blood when he shot all of them from so far away? I kind of suspected he was the neat, no touch them, type!"

Lassiter exclaimed, "Me too! But there it is! Suddenly he remembered something, "Holy Toledo! This has the same saying on it that Trevor Pierce had on one of his shirts in his luggage! Look at it! 'Unbend your bow for a bit!' The bastard went and bought a replacement shirt!"

Woody nodded, amazed.

Lassiter said grimly, "Forensics will tell us more of course but in the meantime I am going to confront our 'Cupid, slash Robin Hood, slash Trevor Pierce,' slash serial killer with this new evidence and see just what he has to say for himself!"

Dr. Madeline Spencer was walking back to her desk when she heard the inquisitive "Mom?" She turned round to meet the energetic eyes of her son.

"Shawn? What are you doing here?"

"I'm working on this case!" He was a little lost for words, he hadn't seen his Mother since he and Gus had been kidnapped by Mr. Yin. "What are you doing here? Last time l heard – you had been flown into Amsterdam, of all places, to deal with a high profile case."

"Yes. It's been too long since we spoke. And l took that case over two years ago, Goose."

"Oh, well – it's certainly a surprise to see you!" He laughed nervously. "Yeah."

"We should meet up." They began walking down the corridor to the see the chief.

"Definitely, Mom! You gotta tell me about Holland." He looked down and grinned.

"So where's Gus?"

"Gus. Who's Gus?"

She looked at him strangely.

"Oh GUS!" He put his hands together as if to pray, he said in a sad voice. "I am afraid Gus is in a bad place."

"Oh my god!" Madeline was a little alarmed to hear that. "Did something happen!"

"No, nothing like that. Gus had numerous cavities in his teeth so he has gone to the Dentist. He is afraid of the Dentist – and to tell the truth so am I." He then added to himself. "That raw sugar eating competition was not really the best idea we've ever had." Then Shawn pulled her into the conference room so they wouldn't be heard. "So you're still working cases here?"

"Yeah – we're looking into a string of murders committed to a number of young Women around here. Some guy we met in a video shop was arrested."

"I just interviewed that man."

"Really? What can you tell me?"

"Shawn – that is confidential."

"But the more you tell me – the more I can devine from the spiritual word."

"Shhhh! So you are still carrying on that dance are you."

"Mother – I always dance!" Shawn began to shimmy right on the spot.

"Goose!"

He grinned and hugged her. "It's good to see you, Mom. Maybe the lengths between visits won't be as long next time."

"Yeah." She agree with that, she knew she's have to confront Henry, which would be a whole different kettle of fish.

He hugged her again and said. "Please tell me – do you think he really did it? I don't."

She gave him a serious look and said "I do not believe that Trevor Pierce has the sociopathy that would enable certain people kill. He seems harmless to me."

"That's what l told them when they dragged him away. I wish l knew how to help him."

Madeline sighed. "Well, in my report I will make significant notice that I don't think he did this."

"But if he didn't do this, someone else did."

Madeline's phone rung. She answered it and after a brief conversation she told Shawn. "I have to go. I will call you later, okay, Goose?"

"Okay, Mom, you take care." Shawn watched his Mother go – he was still too shocked to move and stood for sometime before he heard Lassiter go past.

As Madeline was headed out the door she and Shawn suddenly heard Lassiter exclaim with bitter happiness. "Spencer – new evidence!" Lassiter was grinning widely. (It did not look good on him). "So I don't have to release 'Cupid' after all! I have evidence now that will let me hold him for much longer!"

Madeline was shocked. "_What _new evidence?"

Lassiter grinned again. "One of my best Men just found a bloodstained shirt near the scene of one of the murders that exactly matches one we found in his luggage. Same archery related phrase. They both say, 'Unbend your bow for a bit. ' What are the odds two men who both are this good at archery would also have the same shirt?"

Madeline pointed out hopefully, "Well the fact both are interested in archery means they just might!"

Lassiter shook his head. "I don't think so! I think he decided to inspect one of his Victims close up after he killed her, got blood on a favorite shirt of his and decided to buy another one just like it to replace it."

Madeline sighed.

Lassiter smiled an uncharacteristically big grin, "So I can hold 'Cupid" for a whole lot longer now based on reasonable suspicion of murder and this will be the nail that slams the door on his prison cell for life or even gets a dart (of poison) stuck into_ him!_ I have succeeded in getting another monster off the streets!"

Lassiter actually danced down the hall, leaving an open mouthed and very sad Madeline to deal with the emotional fall out.

Trevor knows His Red Stuff.

Cupid was no sooner back in his isolation room when he was dragged again down the hall by a very angry Buzz back to the interrogation room! But this time it wasn't gentle Madeline Spencer he would be seeing. It was a very angry Lassiter.

Buzz practically forced him into a chair, giving him no time to sit down voluntarily on his own. "Sit!" he growled.

Trevor said unhappily. "Well if you had just asked nicely I would have come in here and sat without all this pushing and shoving!"

Buzz growled. "Don't you give me any guff, you monster!"

Cupid sighed, "It is in the sacred myths that Psyche is to call me a monster for a time, but what gives you the right?"

Lassiter rushed in then. "Cupid!" He sneered.

Trevor looked up at him, his eyes full of innocence._Well if this Mortal was at least going to call him by his proper title, (however __disrespectfully__) he would return the favor, __(__except a lot more respectfully__)__._ "Yes, Head Detective Lassiter?" Somehow, Trevor's innocent eyes challenged Lassiter's stark, cold eyes.

"What type of shirt are you wearing?"

"You are asking me about my shirt?" He muffled some laughter. "That's odd, I knew you were the Police, but not the fashion Police!"

"Answer the question please!"

Trevor looked down at himself and fingered the material. "It's a red cotton shirt. The shade is called, I believe, Egyptian scarlet. It comes from Italy. I try to buy stuff from there not China, or better yet when possible from Greece due to they need the money a whole lot more."

Lassiter said quickly, You like the color red, Cupid?

Cupid smiled. "I do yes." He got a wishful expression on his face. "It is the color of LOVE!"

"It is also the color of BLOOD!" Lassiter slammed the stained shirt down under his nose.

Cupid stared at it innocently, "You brought me back in here to show me a shirt covered in ketchup stains?" He picked it up and looked at it, "Hey its one of mine! Why did you cover one of my shirts with ketchup stains?" Then he looked closer at the shirt. "Oh, no, wait a moment. No it isn't. I had a small stain on the bottom of mine and even if you added all these new ones for some reason that one would not have come out."

Lassiter felt several colorful metaphors rising to the occasion in his brain and fought the urge to say them. _Ketchup! What if he is right? We should have made sure it was blood first! _"How do you know they are ketchup stains?"

Trevor shrugged, "I work in a bar and grill and live over it with my Boss as my Roommate. When someone doesn't show up for work I fill in no matter what the task now. That has included cooking for about four and a half years. So I know ketchup stains when I see them. I've had plenty of my own but this disaster isn't one of mine!"

Lassiter glared at him, "I don't believe you. I think this was your shirt and that is the reason you knew they were only ketchup stains! And I am

holding you indefinitely on solid suspicion of being the Robin Hood serial killer based on this because only the killer would have known this!"

Trevor was incredulous. "That I can recognize ketchup stains when I've been working in a bar and grill for over five years makes me a killer!"

But Lassiter was already leaving the room and Buzz with a great deal of satisfaction dragged him back to the isolation room!

Shawn Actually Listens To His Father!

Shawn was almost relieved when he got home after that and found his Father waiting for him. For once he WANTED to talk, wanted his advice desperately! He did not beat around the bush._ What good would it do? It was as if his Dad had the REAL psychic powers. He would be able to tell right away his Son was troubled about something._ "Dad I believe Trevor Piece is innocent. How do I catch the real killer?"

Harry looked at his son thoughtfully. "How can you tell he's not guilty as Hell? There was even a movie out a few years back about a man who thought he was Cupid who had to kill young Women. Lots of folks think this guy is probably re-enacting it."

Shawn shook his head. "No Dad. He isn't! What did you always teach me about not judging Folks before you've met them and not jumping to conclusions? I have talked with the fellow's Psychiatrist who has ran tons of tests on him and has over five years of very close observations, not to mention, psychic or not I do have good gut instincts you know, for real. He is not our killer!"

Harry smiled. "Good! You are correct! He's innocent and I will help you prove it. But on one condition. You don't pretend to solve this one psychically! You come right out and admit you are solving it using good old fashioned detective work and close observation, all the tools I so carefully taught you over the years I brought you up! Make me proud of you Son instead of making me feel like a laughing stock for having raised a buffoon and a charlatan!"

Shawn swallowed and thought to himself, _But this time I had a real vision!_ But he nodded. "OK. But what do I DO!"

Harry said. "He worked at a bar. He only recently arrived in Santa Barbara. That bar would have security tapes which would be time stamped. I happen to know from my Fishing Buddies who still work at the station something the Public has not been told and that you don't know. Some of these Robin Hood murders go back for several weeks! Get a hold of those tapes and find ones that clearly show your nut was clearly in New York, tending bar at the time the murders here took place. Simple Sherlock! Our Police could do it but they are really trying to hold Trevor to hold down panic here while they quietly if rather half heartedly, search for the real killer. He is a sacrificial lamb so to speak to keep the public calm. Make the Public think the problem's solved already so the Tourists keep coming, Yada yada yada! And it helps the real killer is cooperating, laying low to use your nut as an alibi too. The real killer probably will go to some other city now and start all over again. So this stops the killing in Santa Barbara and that is what our Police department and the Mayor want. Far as Santa Barbara as concerned we've solved _our_ problem thanks to this convenient, innocent lunatic and his own incredible talent with a bow! And of course this nutcase, Trevor also now gets some badly needed psychiatric care he wasn't getting before and so everyone's better off! Except of course, the Women in the next town who are now being murdered by the real perp!" Harry was really furious and it showed! "So you see, Son, they don't really want it brought out Trevor isn't the one!" Harry sighed. "Consider how many rape convictions get overturned now that DNA evidence is proving them wrong. Murders seldom have DNA evidence! They don't even have Eye witnesses most of the time who can testify about the person who harmed the Victim! I don't even want to THINK how many innocent People I've sent to prison and even to the needles and the electric chair! Makes me wish I'd picked another profession! And yet, without the threat of Police catching them there really would be so many more murders! Our value is not in who we catch but in who we don't have to catch out of fear we exist in the first place! The crimes that don't get committed in the first place, the People who live because someone decides NOT to murder their Wife or Husband or young Child or that asshole who really deserves it, just because we exist! No one but God can keep statistics on what doesn't happen. But there is where most if our real value's at!

Shawn nodded but he was already easing out of the room and to a place where he could use his cell phone in privacy.

The next day a Fed Ex truck pulled up in front of his home and box after box of security tapes were unloaded. Shawn sighed. _He did "good old fashioned Detective work all the time. At least this time he would be taking credit for it. But it sure would be nice if he had some real psychic powers and wouldn't have to go through many of these to establish Trevor's innocence!_

_But maybe Trevor's family would help him again?_ He looked upwards, "Help!" He called._ But the skies were brass today__to getting prayers answered it seemed. No more visions. _

But he hadn't counted on mere mathematics!

Sometimes neither the gods and not even the BigGod have to do a whole lot to answer our prayers. It happens automatically, the answers already having been set up ahead of time due to the Universe just having to run the way it must. This was one of those times.

Cupid was a full time employee. Plus he lived above Tres Equis, did the Janitor work as a freebie pretty much because he had been hired under an Illegal Emigrant situation. Neither Greek gods nor People with "Hysterical Amnesia and Dissociative Identity Disorder who take off from where ever they really lived and let the Secondary Persona take completely over without being able to acknowledge the existence of the First Persona have any documentation whatsoever. Hospitalization had resulted in "Trevor" being issued a new Social Security number but by then his relationship with Felix had already been established. He worked cheap long hours, kept quiet about it and didn't complain! And he didn't even feel like complaining! No one else but Felix had even been willing to take a chance on him and he had been close to permanent homelessness, the money his family had issued him, just about gone, And immortal that he is Cupid knew the working conditions of earlier eras. Cupid felt blessed to be in Felix's employ and having been low god in Olympus's pecking order, had no trouble fitting in, If anything his social status soon rose beyond what it had been back at Olympus! With her best sellers and her advice column in the paper Claire was kind of famous. He got more respect as Claire's Mental Patient than a god! His "thinking" he was Cupid only made him interesting and didn't hurt one bit! But anyway between bar tending at Tres Equis very long hours, being the Janitor, and living with his Boss above the bar and having to pass through the bar to get to the upstairs apartment, you guessed it, not so big surprise, the first tape Shawn picked up showed "Trevor" on it in the first few minutes!

And the next!

And the next. Ran out of exclamation points.

I could run out of Internet. Because of course every tape he scanned showed "Trevor" on them from start to finish and Shawn was soon feeling like a fool for thinking it was going to be hard. He also realized his Father was correct. The Cops except for Lassiter and a few others who hadn't even thought it through how easy it would be to prove Trevor not guilty did not really want the real killer caught, only out of the area. It seemed perfectly OK to most of the Police that he would soon be declared "not guilty by reason of insanity" and spend the rest of his life locked up in a mental hospital. Because while he might not be the killer he definitely was a Lunatic! And "Lunatics belong locked up!" Don't they? It would be for his "own good!" In a way this was great for him this happened! It would be a way to guarantee he would be given "the help" he needed!"

Didn't matter he didn't really need such help as most DIDS don't, (and as many Autistics don't), even some of the ones who pick Fantasy Being Secondaries and let them stay in control, and it didn't matter that was not his wish and he had NOT really committed any crime and was not legally insane (not a danger to himself or others), and was not in any way incompetent (could take care of himself and manage his own affairs just fine). "He was strange." "He was different!" He wasn't "your usual type of Person" and that meant "he wasn't to be trusted!"

This is bigotry of course, that and that alone!

Shawn was intelligent enough to see that was what this was!

He also knew it might be a better idea to let the town's Press know he had information about the case FIRST before he announced it to the Santa Barbara Police Department! It would look like he was fishing for publicity for his Psych Detective Agency. _Well so be it! He would even keep his promise to his Dad and say right out he had solved __it through looking at the security tapes an idea his Father had suggested to him._ He grinned. _An idea about __**that**__ occurred to him! _

Lassiter was not a Happy Camper that night when he turned on the news! `

News flash. ''Here is an odd one for you, Folks! Our local psychic, Shawn Spencer has breaking information about the Robin Hood Murders. That would not be surprising. He often has breaking news about crimes. But get this Folks, he admits this time he knows what he knows this time without using his psychic powers! Stay tuned after the commercial break when we interview, Mr. Spencer."

Lassiter was suddenly very awake as was half the city who were watching. _A Psychic who admitted he was not doing something psychically?_ Oh you bet lots of People who had planned to go to bed stayed up for that one!

After a series of commercials for foods that could not be bought at that time of night. (Why won't Madison Avenue ever have any MERCY!) And a car no one but the very Rich can afford that if it were driven as shown in the commercial it would have been instant tickets or accidents for the Drivers, finally the news came back on.

Shawn was sitting on the interview couch looking not like his usual cocky self. He was looking dead serious for once, haunted in fact! The young Interview Lass was cocky as ever. "So Mr. Spencer you say you solved this one without your psychic powers! How extraordinary!"

Shawn shrugged, "Well not really. I DO have the other five senses remember, same as the rest of all of us do, and I also have a Father who is a retired Detective, a very good one I must add. I am sure he is watching but I will not do the undignified thing here and embarrass him by going, 'hi Dad!' I happened to mention to him I felt that Trevor Pierce was innocent. I can't say at that time it was a psychic thing. I just had a gut feeling about it. More reason and logic than my psychic ability. I had met the Man's Psychiatrist and she had told me about all the tests she had run on him that pretty much established he is not a violent person and she just seemed so sincere and distressed that an innocent Man was going to be convicted of a crime he did not commit. My Father said that the bar where he worked would have security tapes that would be time stamped and I should call his Boss and look at them. I did so. I just used my eyes here, Folks. Sure enough those tapes, every single one of them I've looked at so far show Trevor was in New York and plenty of them show that he was there doing what he was supposed to be doing, bar tending exactly at the time murders were committed over here. Because my Father told me they have been going on longer than the Public has been told. He simply cannot have been two places at once so he can't be our murderer! I didn't need my psychic powers to figure this one out."

Lassiter's face turned the color of fire! _Shawn was right! The murders had been going on longer than __Trevor's presence in __Santa Barbara!__ Ack! __How had he missed this?_

Shawn turned directly to the camera. "So there you have it. An innocent Man is being held in solitary to the great detriment of his mental health. His Shrink told me he can't stand to be by himself! He needs to be let out! He needs to be with People! He loves People! He did not do this! He is like that Guy in the Movie, Miracle on 34th St. except he thinks he is Cupid instead of Santa Claus and can't possibly be more whimsical or harmless! He is a treasure! He needs to go back to his bar in New York where he won't be a bother to anyone here in Santa Barbara again! As for the killer, he just is laying low using Trevor as an alibi and I admit coming out with this information puts Folks in danger again. I am sorry! But I had to tell the truth! Trevor shouldn't be locked up!"

The Interviewer also turned to the camera. "And the Santa Barbara Police Force are guilty of truly sloppy Police work! They are letting the real killer run loose, and locking up a harmless Lunatic who was enriching the World with his harmless craziness! Meanwhile our very own Shawn Spencer of Psych Detective Agency has again saved the day and got to the real truth no matter how he did it."

Lassiter's snarled and gritted his teeth in anger. Not unexpectedly his cell phone rang. It wouldn't be the last call he took that night either!

The Sermon on The Steps

Very early next morning Lassiter gritted his teeth, not wanting to extend the courtesy he was about to, but realizing he had_ better._ He went up to the Man's Doctor and said quietly. "Alright, We have a circus out front! Every bozo with a press card or thinks he has one wants to talk to, "Cupid!" But in light of the Man's mental condition and the circumstances I have arranged for him to leave the premises quietly out the back door. He won't have to speak to anyone if we are lucky!"

Claire's blue eyes became as hard as ice. "Oh how nice!"

Lassiter nodded, "Yes. I know how traumatic and embarrassing it must be, his being the way he is and all."

Claire nodded, leading him on, humoring HIM.

Lassiter guided her to Trevor's isolation cell. "You can tell him the happy news yourself!"

"Thank you!" She said sweetly.

Lassiter nodded at Woody who with joy unlocked the isolation cell. Trevor peaked out not knowing what to expect. His dark eyes lit up when he saw Claire was standing there, a conditional smile on her face. She explained. "You've been released, sort of. Your allegedly psychic Friend did something he amazingly admitted wasn't psychic and checked the time stamps on some of the the security videos from Tres Equis. They clearly show you doing what you were supposed to be doing; serving drinks at the times of many of the awful murders!"

Trevor felt such mixed emotions! Relief he was free! Horror that the Women had still been killed by somebody, anger he had ever been mistaken for this killer! Fear it could happen again! Elation! Gratitude that Shawn had worked so hard and thought to do so! He also could hardly believe it! He fearfully asked, "So I'm _free?" _

Claire nodded, "I think so! They still see you as a suspect for some reason, but no longer to the point you have to stay locked up!"

Trevor ran into her arms! Claire decided to forget the damn rules about not touching Patients, just this once and let him hug her. As he did she stated, "And oh, 'Cupid,' Lassiter has arranged for you to slip quietly out the _back_ because there are a whole bunch of Camera People and Newspaper Reporters trying to contact you out _front!" _

The fact she had called him "Cupid" didn't escape him and that was deliberate upon her part. She had not called him Cupid in years! He stepped back and gave her a pointed look, "Ohhhh! Is that so? Thanks for the useful information!"

She grinned knowingly and quickly stepped backwards out of his way as he boldly charged _forwards_ headed for_ the front! _

She frowned at the shocked Lassiter as if he were some kind of Bug and shuddered! "You poor thing! I wouldn't want to be you for the next few days for anything in the World!"

Cupid worked that crowd the way he worked any crowd. He could do what Hitler could do except most of the time he did it only to make People sing and dance and have a happy time of it. But not this time. This time "Trevor" did give a speech and what a speech it was! Amazingly it wasn't so much the words. On paper it didn't seem much. But everyone who heard it, even if they didn't speak English totally believed it just as they would know the lyrics to songs he wanted Mortals to sing instantly._ It scared Claire, really it did! __It__ made her suspect maybe, just maybe!...Oh! But surely not! She would have to rethink her entire concept of reality! _

But during the next Santa Barbara election there was an ENORMOUS amount of money voted to help house the Mentally Ill in free range type mental health facilities (not_ the lockup type) and for helping all kinds of Homeless including Animals and for medical research and even for solar power! How in the World could Trevor's little five minute speech about Mortals being kinder make this HUGE a change? No one who read it on paper was effected much by it, only those who heard or saw him give it. What If Jesus had mass media? Oh brother! _Claire shuttered!_ She was starting to believe him! _

_Trevor rushed forward and sure enough he had the biggest Audience of all his time in the Mortal realm! _He walked over to the biggest camera, flashed it his sunny grin as if it were a Person and without any fear or hesitation started right up with his "Sermon on the Steps"

"Bill and Ted have it correct. 'Be excellent to one another and party on, Dudes!' And Jesus has it correct, "Love your Neighbor as yourself and all Beings are your Neighbors." We are all riding this Merry-go-round of Time together, all Slobs, all Strangers on the bus trying to make our way home. Not only this Planet is small but this Universe is small. I have seen it, the entire thing from very far away and yes, the Universe itself is very, **very** small! Protect the entire thing! You _must!_ It is your destiny! But as for now the US is blessed by the Great Mystery because you realize Diversity is your strength and joy! I and others like me, (whatever I am), are part of this Grand Diversity and Great Mystery. This is true if Claire is right and I am just her Mental Patient, because most of those are way beyond harmless into beneficial to society just as I am. Or, if I am correct and I am really not only her contented Mental Patient but also Cupid, Greco-Roman god of love, one component of the Great Mystery, this is equally true. Your Mortals are cells of the Body of Christ and we little g gods are bigger parts of Him. When in your nation's history have you ever had any trouble with anything living on the top of Mount Olympus? Never, right?" Trevor grinned his sunny grin that could have tamed a wild Tigress and probably did. "My ditsy family is pretty harmless these days!"

The crowd laughed.

Trevor continued, "So follow Bill and Ted's advice. 'Be excellent to one another and party on Dudes!' And follow Jesus's advice and love your Neighbor as yourself, and remember all those strange and different are your Neighbors too, all living Beings in this Grand Creation, from the Proto-viruses who live inside of you, up to things beyond your comprehension right now, the entire chain and Circle of Life! We are all Neighbors. We forever ride that merry-go-round of Time together. When Artificial Intelligence Technology flowers we will be your Neighbors too. Notice I said, 'we?' Now there is a clue to my family's existence and your destiny, my precious, wonderful Mortals! Help all who need help including yourselves. Be mean to no one. If a Bug on the sidewalk needs a help over the crack stoop down to help her. She could have been you! Rejoice no matter how horrid your circumstances. You at least won the sperm race! Cut the Big God some slack! Consider that He is doing the best He can and it is not easy to do what He has to do! You want Him to be omnipotent, but grow up! You aren't Kids any more and ought to realize Daddy has His problems! This Universe is a work in progress and so are each one of us. He is working on all of this quickly as He dares. If you do not like someone consider he or she may be the Ancestor of some very important Person in the future and wiping that Individual out may prune away a vital branch of Humanity. Time keeps circling, He improves things every cycle best as He dares, this life is only the beta test and besides how many more nail holes do you want before you forgive Him too? Thanks for listening to me, precious Mortals! Now I have to go with my Shrink. She is rolling her eyes to the Heavens again begging for help with me. She has done this I think about ten thousand times. It must be working!"

Trevor grinned again and the crowd started howling with laughter. But they were laughing with him not at him.

Comparing Notes about a god and a Goose.

Santa Barbara is a very big city. It is not as big as LA but it still has a huge maze of interstate highways and roads that run and intertwine around its mountains and shops and shopping plazas and it has several malls. It isn't just a little seaside area with a few hotels and a cop shop and some restaurants. It stretches for miles and miles and there are thousands of homes and apartments and businesses and Doctors offices and several hospitals and all the things we Human Mortals create for ourselves to make us happier or try to make us happier. The chances that Dr. Claire McCrae and Dr. Madeline Spencer would just happen to meet anywhere that did not involve their professional work has to be a miracle of guidance. And yet they did!

Claire decided to go to a mall. She is Female. She had been in Santa Barbara now for several weeks and needed some new things to keep up her professional appearance. Madeline had the same problem. She just "happened" to pick the same mall.

And they both just "happened" to get the munchies at the same time, and so ended up at the same food court at the same time!

Dr. Claire McCrae had never met Madeline Spencer of course, but Madeline Spencer knew what Dr. Claire McCrae looked like. She had seen her photo in Trevor's Police report.

She went up to her, "Hello. You don't know me but we have quite a connection. I'm the Police Psychiatrist who examined your Patient. I am also the Mother of the private Detective who managed to get Trevor released."

Claire eyed her uncertainly, _friend or foe here?_

Madeline Spencer went on, "I'm prouder to be the Mother than the Shrink in this case!"

Claire relaxed a little.

Madeline Spencer continued. , "I already gave my report to my Superiors. It said I do not believe Trevor has the capacity to commit the crimes he is accused of committing. He seems too gentle to me, Dr. McCrae."

Claire's worried face went several shades lighter with relief. "Oh! Thank God! Call me Claire!"

Madeline Spencer nodded. Call me Madeline. Now that my official work is done, I am intrigued by your Patient. We are both Professionals. You can. Let's sit down and eat Chinese and gossip like we Women can! Tell me about him!"

Claire smiled and sat down with her cup and tray. She leaned forward feeling a bit mischievous, feeling a bit naughty even though it was alright to talk about Trevor to a fellow Psychiatrist. She smiled. "He is the Patient you hope to have when you choose to become a Psychiatrist. You know; the fascinating one who is worth the fact you are not going to make nearly as much money as a Proctologist or a Plastic Surgeon, the one who WILL talk to you and open up about their dreams and deepest fears and desires and hopes and is the crazy one who tops all crazy ones. The one who isn't in the text books, the one books could be written about, In fact I am!" Then she frowned. "The problem of course is when he does do his opening up to me, which he is very willing to do, it is never about reality! I am hearing his traumatic past about his family of gods up there on that mountain over there in misty, mythological Greece!" Claire pointed in that general direction. "About Venus his Mother the goddess of love and her husband Mars the god of war and his Uncle Mercury, about his Uncle Vulcan, how he called him Limpy as a five hundred year old winged Cherub-like putio when he stole his wheel chair to go play Captain Kirk while traveling to Episilon Eradani to go try and find the real planet Vulcan! I am hearing trauma about his being, very possibly the bastard child of the god of messages and the goddess of love! I am dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by futilely trying to fight off a plague of Grasshoppers with thunderbolts that supposedly happened, as best my Patient can peg it, in the year fifty-four years BC, before He met Christ, (and when I say he met Christ, I mean he MET Christ!) when he was allegedly around nine hundred years old, which means he was very sexually precocious. (But being the god of erotic love what can we expect?). He apparently then watched his First Love starve to death and slowly rot away! This is false memory syndrome taken to the extreme but it is _really_ bothering him! I can't even get to the real Person hidden deep inside this false god because the Secondary Persona is so fully developed!" Claire shook her head in exasperation.  
>"Oh I think he <em>has<em> come out a few times! The thing is I don't think that one is so disturbed at all! I get the idea he was laughing at me, that Cupid is more a joke he created to do the dirty work of doing life for him while he just sits back and relaxes not having to deal with a thing himself! The Man Behind The Curtain is resting in a hammock and watching this Grand Show he has arranged, clapping and cheering his little puppet, Cupid on! Poor Trevor gets to feel all the pain of life and take the insults of being called, ''crazy' and the Host is getting a free ride! I quit digging at him years ago. I am just in waiting mode." Claire sighed. "The scenario that was laid out for him as if it is some kind of organic video game is when he gets one hundred couples matched in true love he gets to go home to his family of gods back on or in Olympus. He is up to 67 couples and climbing rapidly. I want to see what happens when he gets there, if it is going to make him realize he is just delusional or if more likely he is going to confabulate some reason why he is still not allowed to go home, or if he is just going to decide he doesn't want to go home. He will believe it is his choice of course. He can convince himself he has one, that he actually can go home. I want to see how he explains why he doesn't suddenly get his powers back!"

Madeline asked, "Any chance the original Host will switch places with him then?"

Claire shook her head, "And Pigs may get wings someday too, right? Nah. Cupid is too full of life! That may have been the original plan but at this point in the game I don't see that it's ever going to happen!"

Madeline Spencer asked, "He copes competently with day to day living?"

Claire nodded, "Oh yes. Very well. What ever made him decide to become a god was not the need to compensate for any kind of inadequacy. More the other way. His IQ and Creativity Quotient are off the charts and that causes him adjustment problems as much as anything. He may need to KNOW there are others just as intelligent and powerful as he is to keep him humble and to keep him hoping he is not all alone in the Universe and will be reunited with others just like himself someday. That hope is allowing him to keep functioning, so I have to be really careful and consider, 'do I really want to pop his delusions? I could end up turning him into someone who can't function!' His belief he is a god also helps him to tolerate so many of the rest of us who are not anywhere near as bright as he is; us "mere Mortals." Claire made quote marks with her fingers, "who though we seem inferior are actually who make his kind far in the Future. So we must be protected and treated with honor! His beliefs are precious! They are almost a real religion and almost a healthy one. So this is definitely not an inadequacy he is trying to compensate for. That is also indicated by his choice of gods. He didn't make himself Zeus or Jesus Christ or any of the more common choices Patients chose to comfort themselves with who have those kind of problems. He made himself Cupid! A god with some powers it is true but way down in social status and the way he plays him, even lower down than at first I thought he would be. He's illegitimate. Until his kid brother Antheros was born he was the youngest god in the whole little town of Olympus and thus was picked on a lot. He was the one every one asked to do all the worst of chores but fortunately he never minded working. (And he still doesn't!) He says that is because he IS Love and Love manifests itself in work. His father the god of war scorns him for not being able to kill (though that sure makes us Shrinks happy!) He is a mischief maker and that keeps getting him in big trouble in both realms. (It sure did! It is why he was first committed). Oh I could go on and on! The other gods have handsome, godlike physiques. But in his actual body he is fat and cute and his wings get in his way instead of helping him fly! So the other gods laugh at him! But for all of that his powers of shooting with a gold arrow and having folks fall in love and shooting with a black arrow and having folks fall out of love work on his fellow gods too. So they fear him as well as finding him a real, literal pain in the butt who could destroy their social plans! (Let's just say he is not the most welcome god at parties!) But here, here in this realm despite most Folks now knowing he is not quite in touch with reality since he doesn't keep it quiet that he is _sure_ he is Cupid, (he makes You tube videos), he is prospering much to his amazement! Or at least he was before this happened!" Claire suddenly burst into tears.

Madeline Spencer reached out her hand and patted Claire gently on the arm. "It will be all right for him, Claire! He will get out of this! My Son will help! He is innocent! I am sure of it too! The truth will out!"

"Your son!" Claire bit her lip trying to keep her opinion out of her voice. "Tell me about _him!"_

Madeline Spencer smiled, "He is such a Goose! That is my professional opinion! No. He has an eidetic memory as I do. That is his real secret. Mine is audio. His is visual. He never forgets anything he sees and he notices everything immediately, well almost everything. His Father had such high hopes for him to follow in his footsteps and become a Police Detective, but like your Cupid he just can't kill. And to be a Police Officer you have to be able to do that, you know, and you have to be able to arrest People and be mean to them. My Child just can't! He just can't be mean to anyone! Instead he is a Clown! But he did so not want to disappoint his Father! He tried to become a Detective, bypass just becoming a plain Cop, but they won't let you do that. But he hung around the Police station a bit too much. It put him in harms way. In this case he didn't get a crime committed to him. Thank God for that! But in some ways it was worse! He became the main suspect for having caused a crime because of his eidetic memory. And as you know full well from what you are going through with your Patient right now that could have cost him years of freedom and his fine reputation! Because no one would believe he wasn't the perp when he reported what he knew. There was no way he could know what he knew, you see, due to no one just could unless they'd dunit! But he didn't just do what a Normal Person would, my Goose! And explain he has an eidetic memory! Oh no! He suddenly goes into this fake psychic act! And we Californians must be as weird as we are reported to be because they bought it! Or at least it was deemed possible enough that he wasn't arrested. They let him stay free long enough to find more proof and he and his dear Friend Gus did find that proof. So he decided to open up a Private Detective agency instead of doing the impossible for his kind of personality and keep trying to be a Police Detective or a plain Policemen. I have to commend him for modifying his goals to being more realistic and reachable for him though I certainly can't say becoming a fake psychic detective would be any Therapist's recommendation!" Madeline Spencer gave a rueful grin. "However it seems there are enough gullible People in this area willing to believe my Son really is psychic that he gets just enough cases to keep his head above water. I can hardy believe it even though I am a Psychiatrist and I _have_ seen crazy! He would probably make even more money if he didn't insist on only taking money for the cases he actually solves. We Doctors don't even do that!"

Clare stared at her amazed. "So that is true?"

Madeline Spencer nodded proudly. "That is true!"

Claire said, "I feel much better about your son! I am sending him a check! He did after all already get my Patient, and my Friend I must add, (I am too close to this one) out of solitary confinement and that is legit!"

Madeline Spencer gushed, "Oh thank you! I happen to know his mortgage payment is due. In fact it's two month behind!

Claire sighed. "How much?"

Madeline Spencer told here, "Three thousand, two hundred dollars and fifty three cents."

Clarice took out her checkbook and wrote out a check for exactly that amount.

It was Madeline Spencer's turn to burst into tears.

Conundrum Of A god.

Meanwhile Uncle Mercury had a conundrum. He sat on Eros. That is the asteroid Eros, named that because it has a heart shaped impact crater on it. It had been the first asteroid Mortal-manity had visited up close, a fact that at the time had his son dancing in the aisles at the bar he had worked at, at the time which was in Chicago. His behavior during that mission had driven the Customers there and his Shrink back then, another Claire Bear and his Boss, Linda nuts. But it had been great for his self esteem! This quiet, understated mission may have been the most important mission in NASA's existence, much more important than the Moon launch, a fact Cupid had not been quiet about or infrequent in pointing out. Killer asteroids are no joke! As of the year 2011 we have found 2300 of them huge enough to do serious damage to Earth and it is estimated that is only about one percent of those that can do so. We do not even know most of their orbits so we can't predict if they are coming or not very well. We have nothing that can reach them in time with our nukes to divert them even if we knew one was coming which it is highly likely we would not! And we know we goof trying this! Revelations mentions Earth being harmed by a "flaming star" coming from the sky and poisoning the waters with "wormwood," ("Chernobyl" in Russian). That is obviously an unsuccessful attempt to divert an iron nickle asteroid with a nuke in the future that results in it becoming radioactive. This at least lets us know the Human race survives but great harm is done due to our messing up this attempt. So we desperately need to learn as much as we can about these big rocks! And ASAP!

Mercury sat on his son's name sake and talked to Athena a few billion miles away. She could hear him as she mixed batter for a gluten free birthday cake for their Autistic brother, Vulcan. She was tuned in to Mercury at the time. Little g gods have selective omnipresence and can pay attention to any one or two or so things that they want to.

"What do we do about it, Hooty? Only a matter of time before it dawns on one of em!'

Athena nodded and of course her brother billions of miles away could see that even though now his back was turned and he wasn't even facing our Pale Blue Dot. "Better our side than theirs know it first and even points it out! Honesty, complete honesty is always the best policy, which is why it can't be quick enough The Taliban and Alqueda get their own table top time tunnel! Which is why that such things exist can be googled right on You Tube under, 'Professor Ron Mallett." It is not so much being hidden in plain sight is not being hidden at all. It's like spy satellites. The US couldn't have been happier when Russia got their own and could tell they weren't about to be nuked suddenly. Soon as Muslim Extremists know the Future too they will realize they are NOT going to win the Future. But it isn't because the Christians and the Jews are out to get them. It is because the Big Guy Himself would rather party with and forgive Sinners than fly airplanes into them! Islam will survive, the kind Mohamed wanted, the kind that teaches, 'Christians and Jews and Muslims are all People of the Book' and says, "Let the Jew live peaceably in the Holy land."

''Hooty, back on track!'' Mercury reminded his sister.

"What? Oh yes. 'Trevor' and his fantastic security tape editing abilities. Well duh! Send our fake psychic another real vision!'

Uncle Mercury just lay there on asteroid Eros and giggled. '_Duh' was right!_

Shawn Gets to Spy Psychically on "Trevor"

***Dr. Charles Greeley felt a twinge in his chest as he headed for his car and felt in his pocket to make sure he had his nitroglycerin tablets just in case. He didn't actually have to take one but it was reassuring to know they were there. He smiled and considered that._ What about the placebo effects of drugs that aren't even actually used? He had known of a Patient once who had one Psychotic break with reality; started hearing really vicious voices. He had rushed to a Psychiatrist who had prescribed Anti-psychotics. They had either worked very well or it had been a short lived episode of Psychosis. That happened sometimes. He had been able to wean off the Anti-psychotics themselves very quickly. But not the emotional need for having them handy just in case! The bottle would be carried in his pocket everywhere! By the time a year would pass they would wear themselves to pieces and he would have to have the prescription __refilled, which he would do so diligently. And he __did this for decades! But he never actually had to take a one ever again. _Dr. Greeley smiled with grim satisfaction._ No one would ever tell him there wasn't a place for properly done pharmacology in the treatment of mental illness. No one was forcing Patients like that to carry those pills or keep __refilling prescriptions!_

_Not that Claire didn't have a point at times. But too many Patients relapsed when they went off their meds way too early or at all. Trevor wasn't even an anomaly. It was just what he turned out to have didn't respond to Anti-psychotics. It had been an error of diagnosis not treatment!_

_And speaking of the devil! Well there now! His heart didn't need any medication. It had speeded up on its own! Adrenalin will do it too!_

"Trevor! How did you get in here?"

_For yes here he was, in the parking garage!'_

Inwardly shaking with fear but trying to sound authoritative Dr. Greeley commanded. "This is an area that is restricted from the Patients, even the In-patients! So I ask again, how did you get in here? Are you going to hurt me?"

_He could hardly blame him after that Thorax C disaster! The ancient Greeks were notorious for seeking revenge and Trevor thought he was an ancient Greek!_

Trevor stood as if he were standing at attention. "No Sir! I am certainly not going to hurt you! I just need to talk to you! I have a problem!"

Gently, soothingly in his best professional voice, Dr. Greeley said, "Well now! That is what Claire is for."

The highly unpredictable mental patient sounded exasperated. "But what do I do about the fact that Claire _is_ the problem?" Then very gently he said, "Sir you look like you are very hot and tired. Why don't you get in your car and just put the window down a crack and you can talk to me from there?"

Trevor knew if Dr. Greeley got in the car he would feel safer. _Dang it having to analyze his Shrinks!_

Relieved to have that as an excuse Dr. Greeley quickly did so and was relieved to feel his heart gradually slowing down a bit on its own. _(Well at __least Trevor had saved him a nitroglycerin tablet!)_

Trevor climbed on the hood of the car and lay down facing the ceiling. "It all started I think when you forced her to have to write those darn reports at my Hospital Board Inquest. She puts as much effort into them as she does into that book she is writing about me I am not supposed to know about. In fact she would have had that written and probably five other books by now if she didn't have to do those darn reports! And Sir, we know you aren't even reading them any more, now are you? We know this because I got them away from her a few times without her knowing it and doctored them before you got them on your desk and if you had been reading them you'd have come a running with your face red to scold me big time or even sent Isaac or Hector after me to re-commit me except they were in on it with me. They watched me doctor my Doctor's reports and wouldn't have really hauled me back in. They would have just explained to you it was a test to see if you or anyone else were really reading them! She works too darn hard on them for all that creative writing to be wasted! And then the strain of watching me like a Hawk when it really isn't necessary! And then my hospitalization for delirium which was much harder on her than me! I got a lot more rest! And then what just happened to Dr Frechette! She's not the same old Claire Bear I knew! She's snapping at me! She needs a vacation really badly! And not to have to write those darn reports any more! I am not worth all that time and trouble! I am not going to harm anyone! And let her save all that creative writing for her book about me which People really are going to read! Believe me they will!"

Dr. Greeley said, somewhat amused. "what do you think the hood of my car is, a metal couch?"

Trevor was crazy like a Fox! He knew from that position it would be harder to attack the highly nervous Psychiatrist. _So what if it made him look __even more eccentric? He was way past caring! Better to have Dr. Greeley puzzled at his behavior than nervous at his presence!"_

Dr. Greeley continued, "Alright. I agree with you. I have noticed she's been snappish, even with me and some of the other Staff Members. If it is starting to effect how she is even treating her Clients, even you, I do think there is a problem here! She does need a vacation! I don't think she has taken even one since she was ordered to keep you under observation."

Trevor shook is head, "Not completely correct. She has been out of town three times. But one time I got in an automobile accident that was not my fault and that scared her. So the second time she took me with her and it wasn't all that restful for her. We met a Ghost named Captain Gregg. Well never mind...The third time which was an absolute emergency she left her Mother and me in care of each other and it was only for the weekend anyway. That worked out quite nicely actually but she didn't see it that way. But three vacations, none restful, in five years is just not enough!

Dr. Greeley nodded, "I thank you for bringing this to my attention and I will do something about it! But I ask you again. How did you get in here?"

Trevor smiled, "Uncle Mercury and Uncle Vulcan and I used to watch Houdini work. We learned all his tricks!"

Dr. Greeley said, "the Security Guard is going to be in a whole heap of trouble for letting you slip past him!"

Trevor shook his head, "No Sir. He won't. There will be no proof I was ever here. I monkeyed with the security tapes. They are just going to show you walking to your car and getting in as usual. It is a very old tape I used with you wearing the exact same thing you are wearing today, one from months and months ago that would have been erased if I didn't know tricks beyond most Mortal-ken. To everyone else it is erased already so there is no way to prove it isn't today's. And I changed the time stamp. There will be no way to know it isn't today's feed. I did this just so George Johnson would not get in any trouble if you tried to get him in any. He is sixty five years old, sir, just about to retire just next month! He just can't be fired! Not now! Not at that age! He needs his pension!"

Then suddenly Trevor was running for the exit.

Leaving Dr. Greeley to go home in peace. He smiled in spite of himself and started thinking about suitable medical conferences to send Claire to. And what kind of retirement party to plan for George!***

_Shawn was amazed! He was not only seeing the images but hearing the Participant's thoughts so he understood their motivation. It definitely, even if the other one had not already let him know Trevor (rather he was crazy or not, that it did not establish) was a very kind being and very definitely not the Robin Hood Serial Slayer. Unfortunately it __did so in such a away that definitely would not hold up in court! But it also showed something else; Trevor knew how to fool with security cameras! He could have monkeyed with the ones at Tres Equis and changed their time stamps! If someone else knew he could do this and it came out it could be __his undoing! So he, Shawn Spenser had NOT __proved Trevor innocent! _

When he came out of vision number two Gus was again standing there staring at him, cell phone in hand about to dial 9/11. Shawn put out his hand. "Gus don't. I'm OK. But we do have a big problem!''

''What?''

Shawn groaned, "Our clever Cupid is a magician's apprentice apparently! He can monkey with security tapes and change time stamps! We don't really have an alibi for him!''

They said Shawn's new, very old swear word together, "ODDS BODKINS!"

Gus said, "So THAT'S how he got past all the 1998 ball drop security!"

Shawn nodded, "Apparently that was part of it. No one is really sure unless he spilled it to Homeland Security and it's classified now. Someday maybe he will write a tell all book for charity or something. But we have to hurry on this one!"

Gus asked, "Hurry and do what?"

Shawn shrugged helplessly. "Danged if I know!"

Gus suggested, "Shawn, maybe you ought to at least go talk to Trevor yourself. You got him released. Remember?"

Shawn stared at his Friend and exclaimed, :"Duh! Oddsbodkins!"

Venus and Hooty and Uncle Mercury were perched on the roof of Shawn's house. Hooty giggled and rolled over on her back, "I have to hand it to you 'Trevor!'" She made quote marks with her hands at the use of Ero's new, Mortal name, "I never thought I'd hear those two interjections ever used together!"

Mama Venus nodded and floated just above the roof, not wanting to get her precious, white gown dirty from the shingles. (It was a rare day that she felt like wearing clothes!) "Opu! Our little Cupey's found himself a kindred soul!"

Uncle Mercury lay on the roof not caring if he got dirty or not, resting on his elbows. He gazed over the edge at the Mortals watching them with his ordinary eyes and thought about that. He finally nodded, agreeing.

Cupid and Psych Get Their Act Together

Soon Shawn had called Trevor to his house and was explaining to the bewildered god, "Trevor even though we had better both keep quiet about it I know you probably really are Cupid now because one even though yes, I am really a fake psychic your family or some one gave me two real visions now! And two I know who the real killer is, and three I know because of vision number two you can monkey with security tapes and time stamps and it is only a matter of time before someone else figures that out too or it is already known and the truth will out. So what do I do?"

Trevor sat in Shawn's living room and considered the problem a few moments. Then he said, 'Shawn you have some social coinage as a psychic. Now that you have actually had some real psychic experiences use the coinage you got dishonestly for the real experiences! Tell the ones who do sort of believe you at the Police station who the real killer is. Just do it quietly. Tell them not to tell anyone you are the one who told them but it is. Heck! Never mind that. Just call in a anonymous tip! Anyone can do that at the crime hotline! Get the Police who do really care to working on it. By the time it comes out that someone puts two and two together about me being able to monkey with security tapes and time stamps, by then, maybe they will have the real killer already and a confession and/or hard evidence he is the real killer!" At least for the time being I'm not locked up. I'm free even if I'm not allowed to leave Santa Barbara and I can figure out how to catch him myself! And you may have noticed I have friends in very high places! By the way, who is the killer?"

Shawn stared at Trevor. He swallowed. ''I am taking a very big chance here! For all I know you might be too mentally unstable for the information! For one thing even if you are a god, as I heard it they cast you out for such reasons!"

Cupid nodded ruefully. "Good point! I am plenty stable enough. I was the day I was cast down here, for something like _that._ My banishment was for being unable to handle 9/11 and other atrocities my so called Father, the god of war was doing and I acted out by mismatching couples not by doing more killing of my own! So I would not take matters into my own hands and hurt this perp, just Sherlock a way to prove him guilty and turn the evidence over to the members of the Police who are willing to not make the evidence disappear but really use it to see he's rendered safely locked up. But you want my Psychiatrist present? Mind you she won't believe YOU!''

Shawn bit his lip considering that. Finally he said, "It's Will from the video store."

Quietly Cupid said. ''Thank you for trusting me with that information. And I know how we can catch him if you can give me a ride to a Western Union or a Wells Fargo wire station."

Trevor loved this new fangled Mortal mode of transportation! He rode behind Shawn on his bike wearing what would usually be Gus's helmet hanging onto him for dear life and enjoying the wind in his hair and on his face! "Oh my Shawn! Taste life!" He chortled. "Live! Live every sweet moment of Life! New Jerusalem will have its compensations. You will do things there you cannot do here! Things you cannot even dream of! But the opposite is also true! There is a kind of Hell or purgatory that is just for Folks who didn't bother to live while they were here and that is all they will have for punishment for all eternity, just that and the rest of their afterlife will go blissfully enough. I call it the 'I could have had a V8.' Hell. So drink your V8's instead of your cheap soft drinks and admire the Flowers, don't rush past them and never eat a hamburger when you can afford steak! And what is the good china doing in the cabinet? Your Kids may not even want it! If you like it, use it! Broken is better than stolen or it stays in the cabinet until you die and your Kids sell it for garage sale prices!

Shawn laughed, "pretty good advice for a so called Crazy Person!"

Cupid laughed, "Even my family thinks I am crazy but if so I am crazy-wise not crazy-incompetent or crazy-insane! Oh yes, Shawn! Never run TV for wallpaper. Take the time to put on something good or even turn it off and read a real book snuggled up next to your Kids in bed! They will never forget that! Teach them to have _real_ fun and not be ashamed to laugh in public with Strangers around cold sober! Then they won't need drugs or alcohol to enjoy life!" Or if you haven't Kids teach yourself this, sort of! You know what I mean! Be your own Kid!

"Oh Mortals, LIVE!"

Cupid sure was following his own example almost DRUNK with pleasure at the Spring tropical air at high speeds! He was more like a Dog than a god the way he was reacting to it. They weren't going suicide-fast either, only about 35 miles per hour most of the time. But Cupid was just Cupid and life was sweet to him!

From his earliest days as a little Cherub like putio playing in the dirt with Bugs and sticks as all Kids will if allowed, he had made many another being smile just by his ability to enjoy the simplest of things!

He made Shawn smile now _and mentally he doubled his efforts to help this crazy-wise being! _

They got to a Well's Fargo and Trevor used the one hundred dollars Claire had given him to wire money to Thessaly Greece where Uncle Mercury would use what the wiring itself did not use up for cell phone minutes. That way he could communicate with his son regardless of how well "Trevor" could manage faith enough to hear past the psychic veil/mental force field.

Shawn of course was a tad confused.

"Well he cheats!" Cupid explained. "My family is not supposed to have any contact with me, but my Uncle who is probably my real biological Father cheats by calling me on a cell phone when he can afford the minutes which he can't most of the time. But Medusa is an eBay power seller and she has pity on him sometimes. He is just about her only friend off of Cyberspace. He can't look at her, but she's set up a room there at the mouth of the cave she lives in that has a mirror he can see her reflection in and he sits there on a bench and talks to her for quite a bit while he waits for her to wrap packages to go to the Post office for delivery to Customers. Or sometimes he just 'chews the fat" with her for a while when he's done dropping off bulk items for her to split up and sell back again as individual items. That's how she does it, buys bulk items sold as lots on eBay, splits them up and sells them out again as individual items. But anyway she gives him Euros sometimes and he buys cell phone cards in Thessaly and that's how my real Father and I stay in touch."

_Shawn remembered something about Hercules __having killed Medusa but he decided it wasn't polite to ask that. _Instead he asked, "So how does your being able to stay in contact with your Uncle who is probably your Father catch Will?"

Cupid laughed, "Oh Shawn! Duh! Now I am, through him, back in contact with the entire little town of Olympus, not to mention if I had to be, the rest of little g goddom which includes Asgard, Condors Nest here in South America, the various Native American elementary spirits, etc, even for that matter New Jerusalem because there is a wifi connection, between there and Olympus and anyway Uncle Mercury is allowed over there. But anyway I can't communicate directly with him right now but you know he is watching all this. Duh! He and others of my family are watching Will and the minute he sets out with his killing paraphernalia again Uncle Mercury can now phone me now that he can buy minutes! I phone the Police an anonymous tip, and if they aren't utter fools they will catch the guy in action!"

Shawn pointed out, 'But they may wonder how you know and anonymous or not they may figure out it is you!''

Cupid grinned, "And I tell them the truth! What can they possibly do to me?''

''Think you were Will's accomplice! "

Cupid frowned. "Good point! But he may not want me to take any of the credit!"

Shawn shuttered, "I hope not! Because if they do they will think you utterly insane for calling in and saying the gods told you Will was setting out that night! "

Trevor frowned. ''OK. Scrap calling in an anonymous tip. Maybe this is the one time in my immortal life I will need my War god Father's 500 years of martial arts training. I will have to catch him in the act but before he kills again and bring him down myself!"

Shawn groaned. "That is just what I _didn't_want you to do!"

Cupid stared firmly at him. "Considering what you just pointed out to me, got any better suggestions?"

Shawn frowned and shrugged. "No. I cannot say that I do!"

"Well I absolutely abhor violence and I don't either! Dang it! Or as Herman Munser would put it, darn darn darn! As Mr. Spock pointed out why do we Humans keep finding ourselves in the situation of having to perform this thing we abhor so much since we claim we abhor it so much?"

Shawn grinned sad as he was, "_We_ Humans?"

Cupid nodded, "Oh Yes. We gods are quite Human. The taxonomic nomenclature for my family is going to go, 'Homo Sapient Immortalitas , Olympus.' We are just an artificially engineered variation on the old theme!''

"How was immortality achieved?"

Cupid frowned. "You do not want ours! Ask Jesus to indwell your operating system and make you fit to upload to New Jerusalem. That's the immortality you want and what you Mortals finally developed scientifically for yourselves. Because that isn't magic either. New Jerusalem is constructed technology and Jesus has His Kingdom because He earned it and you Mortals gave it to Him. But we little g gods are evolutionary dead ends! An experiment that turned out to be not the way to do it."

"Well OK. But how was it achieved?''

Cupid shrugged, "Several different methods put together. Tortoise genes. Testudinidae are potentially immortal though of course something always finally does do them in. Their cells have no telomeres as do other so called Mortals. If nothing ever ate them or they didn't get sick or they never got in accidents they would live until they got so big the gravity of the Earth crushed them as it used to do the Dinosaurs with the same problem. In fact gravity not The Asteroid was the reason for a lot of Dinosaur extinction and they technically did not even go extinct with Pigeons flying around every apartment building window in New York that doesn't have a Hawk there (who of course are also Dinosaurs!) Birds were just were forced to evolve a whole lot smaller. But anyway we have Turtle and Tortoise genes and also controlled cancer, because cancer also does not have telomeres so when cancer knows how to work together to make a Human instead of trying to be its own life form you have an immortal Human and our Cancer does know how to make a Human. We also have a third strand of DNA called our rapid repair strand that heals most wounds very quickly and also if we are beamed back to our keep, Olympus it puts us into virtual mode and will give us back whatever body we had stored the last time from memory that was not wounded. Or we can take a different body if we so wish. We also have access to ambrosia which is distilled from leaves from the Tree of Life that grows in New Jerusalem. Uncle Mercury is allowed over there and picks some for us once in a while as needed. For instance our neighbors the Fates have a Goat name Brownie and I have eaten so much Goat jerky off of her you would not believe it. Pops, (that is the god of war,) whistles and she comes gamboling towards him to be butchered yet again. She doesn't mind a bit. The ROM of Olympus will refresh her in 15 seconds and Pops always rewards her with some ambrosia which tastes good to her anyway so either way she gets her life back. Our neighbors the Fates don't mind him borrowing their Milk Goat either because he sure does make great jerky and he shares it with them. And my Tigress Sasha takes bites out of everybody, me, my kid brother's Labrador Puppy, Shadow, Brownie again, nobody cares!" Cupid grinned. ''Its all one big happy consumption party in there!"

Shawn was perplexed. "I don't know if I am hearing about Heaven or Hell!

Cupid laughed. "Me neither! We run around mostly naked most of the time. Is that because Mom gave away so many clothes to impoverished Mortals our clothes maker busted from way-over-use a few thousand yeas back and my Uncle Vulcan hasn't figured out how to fix it yet, or would we do it anyway? My family commits adultery every other day! The Olympian version of Star wars, Shawn: 'Luke Luke I am your Father! And your Uncle!' We are inbred, Greek Hilly billies up there and immortal or not, genetic problems are creeping in. My Shrink, Claire is going to become the goddess of Science and Reason and become our Therapist and Doctor and become immortal and a good thing too! Because it will take that long to straighten us out!"

Shawn laughed. "Now you _are _crazy!"

Cupid grinned, "So I've been told a few times!" Then he frowned, "But I hope not enough to fail to catch this Will! He's killing People! I can at least stop that even if it results in my own incarceration! I will not call him, 'Robin Hood.' Shawn! Robin Hood is a nice Guy! He got backed into a corner to do what he had to do and he made the best of it to help People."

Shawn stared at him, amazed, "Reminds me of somebody I know! He laughed, "The Universe is the biggest Scam Artist of them all! We are taught in Sunday school that the Supernatural exists. Then later we grow up and are taught, "no. it's all Science. There are logical and rational explanations for everything, and now, NOW! I find out the first explanation was true! You pranksters! What a joke you've put over on us Mortals!"

Cupid grinned, "Well actually we sort of evolved out of you though a lot of tinkering went on. We are more future natural than supernatural. But much as I enjoy a good prank, am the instigator of tons of them and always will be. (Like Jessica Rabbit I can't help the way I've been written!) This wasn't actually meant to be a prank. You Mortals actually were told the truth! Says so right in Ephesians 4:15 that the truth is because of Love, yes, ME! You grow up in ALL WAYS into Christ!" Cupid beamed. "Claire would say I'm being a bit of a swelled head here but she forgets we little g gods are part of Him too just as much as you Mortals are, got just as much a right to be. We're His kids too! Naughty kidssometimes but He loves us. I KNOW He does!"

Shawn smiled. "You are indeed crazy-wise, 'Trevor,' not crazy-insane!"

Cupid grinned and pretended to chalk up a score on an imaginary blackboard with his finger. Then he smugly blew out the "smoke.", "Mental Patient: One thousand and fifty two. Shrink: One hundred and five!"

Hermes Quests In Heaven For the Real Robin Hood.

Uncle Mercury stood staff in his left hand, next to the multicolored, gem encrusted walls of New Jerusalem, its brilliant Light making his craggy face a rainbow of reflected light. Clarence, Angel First class sat near Pearl Gate Number Five, a book he had been reading (as usual) set carefully upside-down beside him.

Uncle Mercury grinned, "What's it about this time, Clarence?"

Clarence grinned, "Greek gods! There's a new series out!

Uncle Mercury groaned and slapped his forehead. "Great Jove! They're writing about us again!" He shook his fist playfully at the "heavens" (even though he was already standing in front of Heaven! (He was really shaking his fist at us!) "More things for us to have to do!"

Clarence nodded, "A mixed blessing for sure but a blessing never-the-less. If they'd forgot about you gods before they could make you, why then, you never would have been made! But anyway what's up with this visit?"

Uncle Mercury frowned, "I have to interview a murder suspect!"

Clarence's eyes widened, "Here!"

Uncle Mercury nodded, "To make sure he's staying here! Because who exactly has the Robin Hood serial slayer? We know Will's possessed."

Clarence was agast that Uncle Mercury would even suggest the possibility! "But not by the _real_ Robin Hood!"

Uncle Mercury bit his lip and nodded, "Not bloody likely is it? The guy I remember was not that vicious or revengeful. But I have to make SURE! After all _this_ realm I have some power over! So if I can stop or lesson the danger to my son by stopping the killing of Women in the Mortal realm by stopping the possessing spirit of the real killer in the immortal realm, I certainly should! "

Clarence frowned and shook his head, "Hermes it's just some two bit demon trying to stir up trouble as a gift for his master, not the real Robin Hood! I haven't seen Robin leave New Jerusalem since he was first glorified. He loves it in this old cube of ours!" Clarence patted the sides of New Jerusalem. "Besides, if he were unable to forgive he would not be allowed in here. You know the rules! To be allowed in here you have to ask for forgiveness for your own faults however tiny or huge and you will get it from Jesus no matter what you did or didn't do as long as you are willing to accept His indwelling and repairing your operating system. And you have to forgive the ones who harmed YOU too no matter what they did! You know this is the party cube! If Jesus didn't enforce these rules for keeping this place fun and peaceful it wouldn't stay Heaven. You want justice, go to Hell!"

Uncle Mercury nodded, "I know! It doesn't make sense by the rules of this place that the real Robin Hood could be seeking revenge. But I have to make SURE! So since I'm the one little g god whose allowed into the Mortal Afterlife I'm sure no one has any objections to me asking the Bloke myself?"

Clarence shrugged. "Well. Can't hurt anything." He made a sweeping-in gesture with his arms. Then he looked up and gave his tall friend a mischievous grin. "By the way, you won't believe what they have your staff doing and saying in here!" He tapped his book!"

Uncle Mercury rolled his eyes and groaned. "Oh Papa Zeus protect me! The day my staff talks to me I'll figure out a way to get Claire to give me medication!"

Clarence giggled.

Laughing at that idea himself Uncle Mercury went through the gate and gazed left, right, up and down, 1500 miles this way and that way, but that was only reality. Virtually the way the Inhabitants are stored and travel in New Jerusalem, it is gogolplexes of lightyears of territory. The god was stumped! He ran his lanky fingers through his fiery red hair and considered. _How was he possibly going to find one ex-poacher and robber in this wondrous place that's packed fuller than gold coins in the caves of Ali Baba with them_? There are incredible numbers of ex-thieves in Heaven. Salvation is by grace. "Proper folk" often think they haven't the time to ask for that or sick-pride won't let them. They think they can earn their way to Heaven by their own merits. People locked up for crimes have plenty of time to pray for salvation and little sick-pride left to keep them from doing so. So Heaven is a cube full of forgiven Scoundrels, and uploaded Dinosaurs because "not even a Sparrow falls apart from the Father" and Dinosaurs are Birds and there are sixty million years worth of Dinosaurs.

So Robbing Hood had plenty of company. Much of it hadn't even bothered with that "give to the poor" part either!

So just where in all this wondrous wealth and adventures waiting, eternities worth, was Robin and his Merry Men? Uncle Mercury sighed and picked up his huge, ragged tennis shoe clad feet. _He was __**very**__ fast and he had a feeling it was going to take all he had to find his suspect! Because he could feel Jesus laughing at him! The Big God was in the mood for a game of hide and seek! Mischievous did __not begin to cover describing Christ! After all this was the Being who made the Platypus just because He could! Then thunder-laughed __and bent down and petted the first one __and proclaimed, "now let Mortals figure out __**this**__ Little One of mine!_

Every geographical location is reproduced in Heaven including many non-terrestrial and every single one of those has every era of Time represented. So you can, for instance, have your choice of Twenty-First Century New York, Twenty-Seventh century New York or you can be there when Wall Street really had a wall running along side of it. You can visit England when economic transactions were conducted along the "bank" of the Thames River. You can be there the day Doctor Who caught a five pound Trout in that same river if you wish!

Robin Hood and his Merry Men had no need to stay in Sherwood Forest and be hounded by Groupies anymore than they had to be hounded by the Sheriff of Nottingham after their death. They were as far from England as one could possibly imagine, beardless, hair cropped 1950 era short, no longer wearing forest green, tanned California Beach Boys style and dressed the same.

They had however, as usual camouflaged in with their environment. In 1957 era Hawaii, Hawaiian shirts and swim trunks count.

Because that's where Uncle Mercury finally found them.

Robin looked quite dashing in blue swim trunks and Armani shades. The Merry Men who amazingly had stayed with him all these centuries instead of going off and having some other kind of life (which they were quite free to do so of course) were all equally hard to recognize except for Will Scarlet. His swim trunks were, you guessed it, (no you didn't!) They were purple! But he had on a pink Hawaiian shirt that said, "Will Scarlet!" That was how Uncle Mercury finally managed to locate and identify this motley crew out of billions of others also enjoying 1957 era Hawaii (for virtually speaking Heavenly Hawaii is much bigger than the physical islands).

They lay in their beach chairs a bit bored, which was unusual for Heaven. Usually in Heaven one is completely content. But sudden discontent is a sign something is about to happen to relieve that sudden boredom. And sure enough it did. Robin gazed up, and there before his slightly tipsy eyes was a divine vision, (sort of), not that he needed one more divine vision in a Heaven filled with Angels and the Hawaiian section of it at that which also had copious Hula Girls!

This "divine vision" was nine foot tall and came complete with a head covered in flame-red hair!

Robin rubbed his eyes but it did not go away.

"Hello!" it said cheerily. "I need to have a word with you."

Robin said hesitantly."Ay sure! I'll talk to anybody within reason! Who are you! Ah, _What _are you?"

"I am Mercury, the Greek Messenger god."

"Crikey! And you have a Message for _me?"_

Uncle Mercury shook his head. "No, not really. I have questions actually. Have you ever been to Santa Barbara?"

Robin stared at him open mouthed. "When I got up this eternity I never thought the Greek god of Messages would be asking me anything much less that! No! Can't say that I have, at least not that I recollect. Why go there when I can be 'ere?" He looked at Little John who was laying to his right in the sand (too big for a beach chair) and wearing a brown Hawaiian shirt. Out of all of them he was the least loudly dressed. "You ever go to this, Santa Barbara, Little John? And blimey! The gods are taller than you are!"

Uncle Mercury corrected, "No. Only me. I'm like you, little John. Not so little! I have to duck doors when I'm back in Olympus just as you do everywhere. Most of the gods are bigger than most Englishmen of the 14th century but they aren't much bigger than Twenty-First century Americans. My family could dress contemporary and walk up the streets in the United States without attracting much attention other than Greek god jive comes out of our mouths and we talk too much with our hands. Only I am this tall, well my son, Eros is a bit taller than most but not like me."

All the Merry Men started laughing. Robin asked. "Then how did _you_ get so big?"

Uncle Mercury rattled off the old, old family history. "Hybridization. My Father, Zeus cheated on his wife, Hera also known as Juno and had relations with Mai, whose Mother, My Grandmother is a Valkyrie, one of the Asgard, Norwegian gods. When you outbreed like that the Offspring are often bigger than the Parents. Hence, here I am!" He grinned a loopy grin.

"Little" John got a puzzled expression on his face. "I wonder what _my_ Mother was up to?"

That set everybody to laughing. Alan said, "you will have to ask her soon as she gets back from visiting Alpha Centauri ."

"But don't expect a straight answer!" Friar Tuck said laughing."

Little John stared at the Priest and frowned. "You know, don't you?"

The Priest/Counselor nodded. "I do! But I can't tell!"

They nodded knowingly and frowned. With him that avenue of inquiry was now closed. Priest-Confessor privacy was like Doctor-Patient privacy and for the same mental health reasons. It just was NOT breached.

John said firmly, "I'll find out some other way!" 

Uncle Mercury grinned "Tough luck! Heaven is Heaven for your Mother too. She doesn't want you to know! And now that you are incorporeal it's a bit too late for a DNA test."

"What's that?" Little John wanted to know.

Uncle Mercury tapped his intertwined Snake staff that Jesus had carved for him. "That's when modern Wizards use special gazing powers to see what is very small; the tiny Mercury staffs inside each one of you that Jehovah put there that make up the flesh code of all Living beings. Every Living Being has a different code carved on their staffs that come from the code from each of their Parents. Modern Wizards can tell from reading your code who your Parents are, or that is they would be able to if you still had your flesh to still have those Mercury Snake staffs inside of you to read. Now you don't. Now your souls are made up of a different kind of code; computer code stored in the RAM chips of New Jerusalem."

Little John said, "I don't understand!"

Uncle Mercury shrugged, "Don't try to get your head around it. It's just more magic that Wizards do."

Everyone nodded, satisfied with that explanation as most Mortals were up until our age.

Robin said, "So why did you come here? I am sure it wasn't to call Little John a Bastard!"

Uncle Mercury shook his head. "There are no Bastard Children, Robin, only Bastard Parents like me! But I try to be a good one anyway and Christ has forgiven me same as He has all of us for our sins when we ask Him to. So no. I came to ask, 'are you so mad at Humanity for how your bones were treated, are you possessing a live Human in Santa Barbara and using him to kill Women out of a desire for revenge?"

They all stared at Uncle Mercury as if he had grown another head right on the spot!

Finally Robin said, "Huh? Me bones? What about them? Last I knew of me bones I was in them and on my way out of them. I was dieing due to that treacherous relative of mine the Prioress of the Abbey of Kirklees. I has been feeling poorly and had gone to her only for a poultice or a potion. But she said I needed bleeding instead. I made the mistake of granting her this and she deliberately over bled me to weaken me and then called in Roger of Donkesley to attack me. I fought him off but I was already on my way out from blood loss anyway. I blew on me horn to call for Little John here. He came to my rescue but too late. What could he do about most of my blood being gone from my body anyway? He helped me up. I shot an arrow and requested I be buried where it landed. I was weak so it took me two tries. I heard they did bury me body there right by the Kirklees Priory where a lot of fun and naughty stuff went on and that's the last I heard of me bones. I got out of my body then and why would I want me bones any more? Those old things! For sure the World can keep them and all its false finery! I was brought here by two Angels named Tess and Daniel and they gave me a much better body that has no aches and I've had a fine time of it ever since!"

Uncle Mercury laughed. "So you don't even know!"

"Know what?"

Uncle Mercury laughed, "As a certain American Radio Announcer would say, 'The rest of the story!' Your bones lay undisturbed for a few centuries. The Monastery was closed by King Henry the 8th in 1539 and became a private residence; the Kirklees Park Estate. The People who lived there in the 18th century wanted an irrigation system to water their lawn and garden, so they were running lead pipes. The Digger was digging his ditch when he hit something. He thought it was another rock or tree root at first. But he dug it out a little and it turned out to be your bones. His face turned white as a sheet! We gods just happened to notice which was quite a coincidence. We don't have total omnipresence you know, just selective but we did just happen to notice this. Well it wasn't a complete coincidence. We knew where you were buried of course. Many of us gods have always admired you because of how well you could shoot and how kind you were to Folks and how much fun you were so we've kind of kept watch over your bones off and on all these centuries and so we just happened to be watching when this was happening. So anyway the Digger ran and got the Mistress of the house and she sent someone to fetch the Sheriff. Your remains were carted off to the station house and examined by the Doctor there."

Robin had never heard the like! "Crikey! You say me bones got hauled off to the Sheriff's and they did what to em? They gave me bones a medical examination they did? Kind of late for one don't ya think? I hope they were feeling better!"

Uncle Mercury laughed again. "No! You don't understand. They just wanted to see if they could figure out whose bones they were and how you died." Then Uncle Mercury frowned, "Unfortunately they didn't! All they determined from that examination was that you had died a very long time ago by Mortal standards."

Robin frowned. "I was murdered!"

Uncle Mercury frowned in sympathy and nodded. "We know! As you said, bled to death on purpose by that treacherous relative of yours! She may have had the law on her side, but what a rotten trick! Because you really were a good guy! But anyway, all that 18th century forensics investigation did was determine you had not been done in any time recently and since it was too late to prosecute a murderer when time had already done that for them you were of no concern to the Sheriff any more. Ohhhhh! If only he'd known who he had there!'"

Robin started grinning. The Merry Men started looking at one another and poking one another open mouthed! Then they started howling with laughter!

Uncle Mercury took note of that and felt very relieved. _There was no doubt the real __R__obin Hood is, as modern mortals say, 'off the hook here.'_ He continued. "So when it was determined through all that 18th century, Mortal magic that you were not a recent murder victim, they discarded what was left of you. You were cremated and your ashes were mixed in with a lot of other charity Human waste remains and you were more or less discarded. I'm so sorry, Robin! We gods, or at least some of us, my brother Vulcan and Apollo and my sister Diana of course, several more of us who are fans of you tried to keep track of your remains but only Jehovah can do things like that with His total omnipresence. We little g's only have selective. It was just like for Mortals trying to keep track of the peanut in a shell game! We were going ga ga and gave up after awhile. Because your remains, all the thousands of tiny particles were being mixed with thousands of others. So we gave up! Had to, to keep our sanity! We are only gods! I am so very sorry!" Uncle Mercury was looking down at the sand and sighing. He finally looked up, his face red with shame that he and his family had failed his beloved Mortals!

But Robin and his Merry Men were merry all right. They were laughing so hard tears were running down their cheeks!

Little John guffawed. "Hey Robin! The Sheriff finally got you!"

Robin nodded, "Ay! But I slipped away from him again I did! Even my bones were too clever for them! Even hundreds of years later and dead, me very bones are too clever for the law to deal with! I got away again!"

That set them all off again! They fell to the sands and were rolling in it!

Finally Robin said, "A toast to me clever bones!"

Friar Tuck lifted the whelk shell he was using as a cup. "A toast! A toast!" Tears of laughter were running down his cheeks.

They lifted their cups high and drank deep from from their bottomless, ever refilling cups of ale, ale that never caused a hangover or any brain damage.

Robin finally said, "Alan! You have to finish your Ballad!"

The colorful Bard looked up, "What?"

Robin insisted. "You ended it with me death and burial! But there are new stanzas you shall have to add now, about me bones and these robot pipes that now water lawns and the shocked Digger and the Wizards that study old bones and the Sheriff who almost had me there even though I was dead and yet still I got away again! Oh! That's worth several new lines don't you think?"

Alan-a-Dale's face lit up. "Why yes it is!" He clapped his hands and his lute appeared out of thin air. He got right to working on it. He sang a modernized version of his original ballad first.

"Down a down a down a down

Went oer yon bank of broom,

Said Robin Hood bold to Little John,

We have shot for many a pound.  
>Hey, etc.<br>But I am not able to shoot one shot more,

My broad arrows will not flee;

But I have a cousin lives down below,

Please God, she will bleed me.

Now Robin he is to fair Kirkly gone,

As fast as he can win;

But before he came there, as we do hear,

He was taken very ill.

And when he came to fair Kirkly-Hall,

He knockd all at the ring,

But none was so ready as his cousin herself

For to let bold Robin in.

'Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin,'

she said  
>'And drink some beer with me?'<p>

'No, I will neither eat nor drink,

Till I am blooded by thee.'

'Well, I have a room, cousin Robin,' she said,

'Which you did never see,

And if you please to walk therein,

You blooded by me shall be.'  
>'<p>

She took him by the lily-white hand,

And let him to a private room,

And there she blooded bold Robin Hood,

While one drop of blood would run down.

She blooded him in a vein of the arm,

And locked him up in the room;

Then did he bleed all the live-long day,

Until the next day at noon.

He then bethought him of a casement there,

Thinking for to get down;

But was so weak, he could not leap,

He could not get him down.

He then bethought him of his bugle-horn,

Which hung lown down to his knee;

He set his horn unto his mouth,

And blew out weak blasts three.

Then Little John, when hearing him,

As he sat under a tree,

'I fear my master is now near dead,

He blows so wearily.'

Then Little John to fair Kirkly is gone,

As fast as he can dree;

But when he came to Kirkly-hall,

He broke locks two or three:

Until he came bold Robin to see,

The he fell on his knee;

'A boon, a boon,' cries Little John,

'Master, I beg of thee.'

'What is that boon,' said Robin Hood,

'Little John, [thou] begs of me?'

'It is to burn fair Kirkly-hall,

And all their nunnery.'

'Now nay, now nay,' quoth Robin Hood,

'That boon I'll not grant thee;

'I never hurt woman in all my life,

Nor men in woman's company.

'I never hurt fair maid in all my time,

Nor at mine end shall it be;

But give me my bent bow in my hand,

And a broad arrow, I'll let flee;

And where this arrow is taken up,

There shall my grave digged be.

'Lay me a green sod under my head,

And another at my feet;

And lay my bent bow by my side,  
>Which was my music sweet.<br>And make my grave of gravel and green,

Which is most right and meet.

'Let me have length and breadth enough,

With a green sod under my head;

That they may say, when I am dead

Here lies bold Robin Hood.'

These words they readily granted him,

Which did bold Robin please:

And there they buried bold Robin Hood,

Within the fair Kirkleys.

Thus he that never feard bow nor spear

Was murderd by letting blood;

And so, loving friend, the story it ends

Of valiant Robin Hood.

There's nothing remains but his epitaph now,

Which, reader, here you have,

To this very day which read you may,

As it is upon his grave.

Hey down a derry derry down.

Robert Earl of Huntington  
>Lies under this little stone.<br>No archer was like him so good,  
>His wildness nam'd him Robin Hood,<br>Full thirteen years and something more  
>These northern parts he vexed sore:<br>Such out-laws as he and his men  
>May England never know again."<p>

Alan-a-Dale thought to himself. _I must definitely add to this! _ He scratched his head and stared at the blue heaven, which in this case really is Heaven! He thought a while, then strummed on his lute and sang:

"For five hundred years

Robin lay in the ground,

Lay in the ground!

Lay in the ground!

With the blue blue sky

And green, green, grass above him.

And the rains fell sweet and the cold winds blew

and the sun warmed his bones and kept them!

And the green grass grew and the lilies pure

and springs and winters came and swept them.

Angels and gods and the good Lord Himself

Knew where they lay.

But Man himself!

They did forget him!

(For the stones they'd put to mark his bones

Were not where they'd really set them).

For his men had bragged a tad too much

On the length of his last arrow's flight.

So his bones lay quite a closer pace.

That kept more merry goings on in sight!

But one day in the month of May

A Gardener came a digging

His shovel hit a cold white stone

And that stone was Robin's shinbone!

His face went white when he saw the skull!

To know a fellow man was resting!

Resting beside great green oaks!

Beneath the grass! Beneath the skies

Peacefully a nesting!

Where he had lay a rest for five hundred years

While Kings and Queens had come

And gone around him!

And Kirklees Abbess that had caused such mirth

Had become a private dwelling!

The Gardener ran like the wind to tell his Maid

and the Maid ran and fetched the Sheriff!

The Sheriff came and collected his bones!

So the law finally had our Robin!

Oh the law finally had!

The law finally had!

The law finally had our Robin!

But clever Robin though dead and cold

And nothing more than a pile of bones

Lay there just as clever as a thing of dust

As he had been when he was lively!

So again he slipped away!

Slipped away!

For even as ashes our Robin can dance!

Oh yes! Even as dust our Robin can dance!

And he danced a dance with the dust of others!

So...still!

No Sheriff knows the whereabouts of Robin!

Knows not where!

Knows not where!

Still!

No Sheriff knows the whereabouts

of Robert Earl of Huntington!

And in Heaven his laughing spirit still dances!

The other Merry Men also laughed and danced and applauded and Robin loudest of all.

_It was very evident he was not unhappy about the fate of his bones!_ Uncle Mercury grinned. _My work here is done._ So he quietly slipped away from the merry, motley crew and quickly left Heaven the way only the god of speed can, said goodbye to Clarence at his gate and then rushed off past galaxies and planets until he came to Earth's atmosphere, and came streaking in at such speeds he turned the air hot and one Little Girl saw that and thought he was a wishing star and wished for a Pony. (She got it). He landed on the Santa Barbara beach and from there phoned his son. "Eros you will happy to know that Robin Hood, that is the real Robin Hood, is definitely not inside of Will! It is most likely a two bit demon as my Angel friend Clarence surmises or just a real secondary persona he split off from himself just as Claire would theorize. She could be right here. Because not all Alternate Personas in DIDs are Walkins like you. Some really are manufactured by the Host."

Cupid nodded. "I hope that's it. I would rather one person be guilty than two."

Uncle Mercury shook his head, "It's not that simple. In the Afterlife, Secondary Souls get treated as individual Souls anyway, most of the time, if they are developed enough. They can be just as much completely developed and separate Individuals from the original Host as you are apart from Arty and have just as much right to a separate Afterlife! It is no different than separating Conjoined Twins once they get to the Immortal Realm. "

"Oh!"

Uncle Mercury smiled. "So when they die Will and this other operating system who thinks he is Robin Hood will be judged separately regardless of their origins. For all we know the real Will may get to Heaven, Eros and you could meet him someday on a visit he makes to your Aunt Hestia's restaurant in Olympus. You could even become Friends with him. Only this fake Robin Hood may end up being caught in the coming nova of the Sun."

Cupid exclaimed. "Interesting! I hope my last Host gives up his infatuation with worshiping us little g gods and finds his way to the Big God and to New Jerusalem in time!"

Uncle Mercury said quietly. "He _is_ finding his way, Eros. I'm not supposed to tell you this but Claire Number one, Dr. Claire Alan is still secretly in contact with him by web after he fled Chicago to get away from the rest of the idiot Shrinks there and she is still helping him adjust to a Cupid-less life."

Cupid felt a flood with relief over what had been a very big worry! "Oh Uncle Mercury! Is that ever great news!"

Uncle Mercury smiled, agreeing.

That night Uncle Mercury stood on the beach of Santa Barbara and stared upwards at the stars. He was a god. He could see them through the haze caused by Mortal electric lights. "Hooty, I wonder if Robin's Bard, Alan-a-Dale is an Ancestor of Dr. Claire Allen? Names sometimes last with Mortal Humans down through the generations."

Athena smiled, "Most likely Hermes, anyway. Genes mix so much! Mortals are so blessed, there being so many of them and having so many Offspring down through the ages! I love going to movies and watching the credits and watching for Descendants of the Greats! There are Shakespeares and Tennysons and Coleridges who write and so many Bachs and Brahms who are into music and Simon Welles, the great Grandson of H.G. Wells is a Movie Producer. Immortality has its blessings but it also means there are so few of us! But still Life is sweet under any circumstances! Let's go to Sister Hestia's and hear Brother Apollo and his band play and taste what Sister Hestia has cooking tonight and dance as we always do, as we always _will_ do! We are _alive_ and thus should dance as all Life that is alive should dance!"

Uncle Mercury nodded at his sister's wisdom and so they left their troubles for a bit to celebrate that they have Life. (As we all should once in a while!)

_Eros: god, Mental Patient, Murder Suspect and Private Eye!_

Over the next few weeks since he was not allowed to go back to his beloved Tres Equis, Cupid "haunted" Sherwood Forest/the woods behind Will's apartment building. Cupid thought to himself,_ It is nice my family is trying to spot Will in the act too but considering how slow Mortal transportation is and how close Will is to his killing field it is wise for me to stay near the scene of the action myself. Because it is obvious only catching Will in the act will prove me innocent ! I have to do it before Will kills again but not so soon it could be claimed Will was only in the woods to stop ME!_

Cupid frowned._ There is that danger! In a court of law it could come down to my word against the other lunatic's and both of us probably would just end up committed for life to an institution,which in the eyes of most of the General Public would solve the problem just fine! _

_What headlines it would make! Cupid versus Robin hood! Who is the real serial killer at Santa Barbara?_

_Cupid shuttered!_

The archer had tiny cameras hidden all over "Sherwood Forest that he could monitor right from his lap top which he carried everywhere! Any time he had the Net this Robin Hood was connected to his Forest! He knew exactly who came and went almost any time of the day or night!

Functional illiteracy is a big problem in our society. But there is another, much rarer problem that can also get one in trouble, more a problem of Nerds and Geeks who get wrapped up in the Internet and Books and the Bigger Picture; functional non television watching. (The Author pleads guilty!)

Oh yes! To name a fictional example of it when Clark Kent did not know what horrible violence he needed to attend to that was happening in Metropolis in the (what was it, the second?) Superman movie because he was too busy reading a book!

Rachel Summers had a case of functional non television watching and it almost killed her.

Because she was deeply into what happened between God and Man thousands of years ago she alas was not aware of the events just the night before. Because she also was not a newspaper Reader or a Reader of Net news, nor a radio listener. She cared not at all to keep up with current events satisfied with whatever her Co workers cared to share with her which was very little for she was not social. She was busy at that moment working her way through the entire Torah which is a noble thing to do. She almost needed to be that spiritually prepared because her functional non television watching meant she did not know that Shawn's announcement; that Trevor was not the real Robin Hood serial killer had lost the real one his alibi so he was probably going to start killing again.

So thinking she was still safe Rachel Summers went for her nightly jog, in shorts, (very short shorts), the kind of shorts that caused lust in Will and he did not LIKE to feel lust! And he did not handle it the way Jesus said to, by cutting off his own parts, or more rationally for this day and age, using some chase berries or finding an Endocrinologist to put him on a tiny dose of Depo Provera. Or giving in to the lust but using his hands to satisfy, which is not a sin if a reading of the entire Bible over six times serves me right. (I couldn't find it in there). Oh no! He blamed theLady causing his lust, for committing the 'awful crime' of wanting to be comfortable in Santa Barbara's ninety degree heat when she went for healthy exercise!

So Will had his next victim! As he prepared his bow his dark an menacing eyes kept monitoring his lap top. He suddenly grinned a grim smile of satisfaction!

_Because he in fact had two!_

Claire was getting awfully worried about Trevor! He seemed to be spending a lot of time away from their hotel room, off doing something and he would not tell her what it was! He assured her he wasn't matching couples. In fact she couldn't get him to start matching couples again! She had tried! "No, Claire. No one wants to be matched by me under these circumstances. I would feel uncomfortable anyway. Not until this is settled! Not until the real killer is caught and there is no doubt it is not I."

_She suspected of course, correctly that he was indeed trying to catch the real killer. And that made her terribly nervous of course! She had long ago put two and two together, got four, figured out Trevor had to have the ability to change time stamps on security tapes to have done the ball drop prank and wondered how long his alibi would hold up! It was only a matter of time someone else figured that out too! But bringing it up would only speed up the time it took for the Cat to be out of the bag! She was sure of that! It would almost be like she would ju ju it! Plus then Trevor might try to do something to hide it which would be like putting up a sign post leading to this clue, or worse be completely open about it and there he would be back in that little cell, his mental health going downhill rapidly! _

So one night she decided to follow Trevor to find out what it was he was doing.

Thus suddenly TWO beautiful Woman were skulking about the archer's green woods! _It was if sinful Women were delivering themselves right into his open arms! The archer laughed in grim satisfaction! _

_As for that silly male who looked so much like him who kept skulking about, that didn't bother him. He felt sorry for him. He obviously had some kind of mental health problem __and thought he was Cupid__. Poor guy!_ Robin Hood thought to himself. _Imagine being that confused!_

Suddenly Trevor's cell phone rang. He heard his Uncle Mercury's raspy voice saying quickly, "Eros, Claire is in the woods! She followed you! She is a few hundred feet behind you! And Will is watching her on his lap top cam! And there is another Lady in the woods too! Will has taken out his archery equipment and is packing his bag!"

"Uncle Mercury don't let him hurt her! Or the other Lass!" Eros pleaded.

"Eros remember the restrictions! I can't do anything directly to Mortal flesh! I can only stop the arrows! It is up to you in the Mortal realm to stop Will!"

Eros grimaced and shouted, "Ἐλελεῦ! Ἐλελεῦ!" Then he started tearing through the woods as fast as he could! (Years of running besides Claire in Central Park had made him _very_ fast!). His usually gentle coal black eyes were flashing with dark fire and fury!

There are those who think Gentle Guys are Sissies, that the ability to nurture indicates weakness. But as Chief Sequoya pointed out, "There is no strength like gentleness, no gentleness like real strength." Science has confirmed this. Men with higher testosterone levels are actually calmer and better with young Children! The ones you have to worry about, the ones who cannot nurture, the aggressive, mean men are actually less chemically well endowed however big in size their "equipment" might look!

So now with Claire in deadly danger something rose in Cupid that had never been there before! Some emergency chemical? Some sub-routine kept deep within his operating system that had never needed to click into play before? We don't understand these things yet. But whatever it was, hardware or software driven there is no doubt of it! If he had to, if Will's life had to be sacrificed to save Claire's, Cupid could take it! _And damn the later consequences! _

Thus the god of passion ran through the forest determined to protect his Psyche, a god fearfully and wonderfully designed by us Mortals billions of years in the Future reacting to an instinct older than the Dinosaurs, smelling every leaf and his own sweat and blood, hearing his heart go "pound pound pound" within his chest! _My God this is like Poe's tell-tale heart! But is Lassiter right about me?Am I running through the woods chasing perhaps only another persona within me? A wicked one? NO! No! There are those security tapes! I can't be both at the bar and here at the same time! __And what does my HEART say is true! I can't hurt Folks! _

_Well this WILL I can! NOW! _

Suddenly he thought of his father, Mars and understood!

Meanwhile Will had Claire in sight. He felt all snug and cozy in his tree-blind that made him feel like a god! He could observe the weak and evil World beneath him and they could not even know he was there! Will did not know that Time circles due to General Relativity so hundreds of thousands of eyes were also watching him; glorified Humans, Aliens, Angels, Machine Intelligences, plus the Big Guy's every nano-second! Some had to watch and monitor so he could be uploaded, so his so called "secret lairs," all of them, were Fish tanks for all the privacy they provided him and that is how all of us go through Life all the time! "Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed. Nothing is covered that will not be uncovered!" We are grand entertainment to those in the immortal dimensions, including to our own future selves though it has its compensations. For every ounce of pain we have here we will have pleasure there forever, but also much embarrassment and shame, for all we did here will be viewable!

The clueless Psychotic notched an arrow and pulled his bow back hard. He let the lethal missile fly and it would have flown true as almost all his arrows did. But Uncle Mercury leisurely walked up to it as it rapidly flew through the air and slowly (for him) reached out his left hand and picked it out of the air and then angrily snapped it in two, his usually gentle, green eyes blazing! Then he jumped up and down and stomped on it and screamed at Will and shook his fists at the foolish Mortal even though Will could not see or hear the angry god!

Will couldn't believe it! _He had __n__ever seen an arrow suddenly just fall and come apart like that!_ He notched another one, pulled the string back and let it fly. _This one circled around and almost hit him!_ It sank into a Tree near him so far there was no way he could pull it out again!

Considerably rattled Will decided on a different tactic. He reached into his green pack and pulled out a sturdy club. He gritted his teeth in grim satisfaction! _It was time to try something even more primitive than a bow and arrow, obviously! How fitting! Obviously he was up against those with intellects equal only to those of Caveman! _

(He forgot that Caveman invented more than half of what we call civilization, from sewing and painting and farming to how to control fire, to burying our Dead with Flowers, to the domestication of most of our modern Animals. Primitive definitely does not mean stupid!)

Claire was even more clueless than Will to the monitoring of her life, being aware neither that God and Angels, or future Mortals nor little g gods, nor much more scary, that _Will_ was watching her! She barged through the woods making so much noise he hardly would have needed cams set up. Good perhaps for scaring off Snakes and Bears before we meet them much to our mutual sorrow. The racket we so often make in the woods may be survival-of-the-fittest, hardwired into us!

It helped the non-omnipresent Cupid now to find his Psyche. He was honing in on her even without guidance from the combined magic of Hermes and Verizon Wireless. Unfortunately her racket did the same for Will.

Claire barged out of the woods onto a path and came across Rachel Summers "What are you doing!" Claire exclaimed,

The somewhat chubby lady standing there on a well established jogging path in exercise clothes stared at this Lady who had just struggled through the raw woods dressed as if she had just stepped out of a board room and suggested a possible answer to that question. "Jogging?" she suggested. _And to think others think Californians are crazy!_

Claire exclaimed, "It isn't safe! The Robin Hood Serial slayer may be on the move again! They released the one they had in custody because it's been determined he was innocent so the real one's lost his alibi!"

"Ulp! Well then what are YOU doing here!"

"I am here to try to help a friend!"

"Well!" _Rachel didn't__ quite know how to answer that! _

Suddenly a green clad monster was upon them! Will swung his club and with one blow knocked Claire out. Blood spattered from her head! She crumpled like a rag doll! The man raised his club to finish her off and then Linda screamed in horror as his twin tackled him, all fight and wild eyed fury and had the club carrying man down in seconds, not that he stopped pummeling him then! The second man was screaming in some foreign language! Rachel had never seen such fury! She screamed again and then realized 911 made better survival sense! She dialed 9/11, shouted, "ROBIN HOOD SERIAL SLAYER! TWO OF THEM!" tossed her cell phone down leaving it on in case it could used as a homing beacon and ran terrified as she had never been before, for her life!

Will tried to defend himself against the mad god but he was up against an individual who had over 500 years of hand to hand combat training from the god of war himself! There had been a time when Aries had hoped Eros would follow in his footsteps and learn to kill! For the hundreds of years of Cupid's childhood that had not happened and bythe time of Christianity when Cupid made his tearful, defiant stand against his Father and Grandfather for the New, More Compassionate Way, in disgust the god of war had pretty much thrown away this son who had loved him more than anything! (There are reasons even gods end up in therapy!) But Cupid almost finally did learn to kill this day! Not only was Cupid very well trained but he was furious and being powered by adrenalin. So of course that meant they were both in danger! Because if he had killed Will, his own life for what it would have been worth would have been over too!

But slowly as a rainstorm eases the temporary madness lifted and Love became Love again. Cupid quit doing even more damage to the by then unconscious Will and went over to his Beloved. "Claire!" He exclaimed! "I wish I was a Doctor instead of just a useless god! Why did YOU have to be the Psychiatrist?"

Cupid was bent over his Psyche, his blood stained chest heaving with tears when the Police arrived and just as Will regained consciousness.

"Trevor" did not look sane. His coal dark eyes looked haunted and wild. Too many thousands of years of similar memories were piling up on him at once!

Officers Tom Sanson, Sarah Monroe and John Woodard stared back and forth from Will to Cupid in amazement! Both were covered in mud and copious blood with many cuts and both were mirror images of the other! Cupid glared through his tears and mud and blood and pointed at Will, "He thinks he's Robin Hood! And he's the one who has been killing all those poor poor Women!"

Will grinned a triumphant grin, "Nonsense! Who do YOU think you are?"

Cupid sighed._ He wasn't up to lying to Cops! He knew they would check anyway and lying would only get him in more trouble in the long run. _Reluctantly he admitted, "Cupid."

Will smirked. "There you have it! He's nuts and I am not!"

That was enough for the Cops. John told, "Trevor" "Sir, put your hands up! And the Cops started reading him his Miranda rights still again!

Trevor sighed and complied.

Uncle Mercury exclaimed,_"_ἐλελεῦ!" Then he waved his hands at the Heavens in exasperation! His dark green eyes were wild with fear for his kid and for Claire too! He bent over the unconscious Mortal. She could not see or hear him or course but that did not stop the god from working on her. He had been a Doctor long before he had been their town's Postman and while being hit by way too many lightning bolts from jealous fights with his brother Mars about their mutual love for Cupid's Mother Venus had somewhat fried his brain, there were still a few things he remembered. There were fragrant Flowers growing near her unconscious form. The sense of smell is often the first thing to wake up after a concussion or after a faint and stimulating it can often speed up a return to consciousness which is the strategy behind smelling salts. Uncle Mercury picked some wild Camomile blossoms and waved those under Claire's nose. That didn't work. He shook her and then stood his lanky body up considering the situation, his hands on the back of his fiery red head. He frowned. _Darn the decision to take away their powers to manipulate Mortal cells!_ But he completely understood. _His father Zeus had regenerated Prometheus's liver over ten thousand times after chaining the poor Bloke to a rock and letting Vultures rip out and eat that poor Mortal's __liver over and over again!_ _Of course that was the first sign that poor Papa himself was going around the bend!_ _But obviously the restriction made sense due to that little fiasco!_ _But oh what he would have given to just be able to regenerate Mortal flesh for just a __few seconds again!_ _His omnipresence let him see where Claire's braincells needed it too!_

_Fortunately a few good night's sleep would regrow the missing braincells herself if she wasn't clobbered over the head again and she let herself get that sleep and didn't drink alcohol or eat glutamate or do something else brain-damaging to stop braincell-regrowth! But they didn't have the time to wait! They needed her awake now to stop the Cops from hauling Eros off again! He'd been through enough!_

Uncle Mercury gestured at the Heavens, "Jesus! YOU do something! Your call!"

_But where was his bigger, more powerful Friend when He was most needed? Didn't it always seem to be that way? That eccentric, very colorful Super-Deity wasn't where He needed to be when needed? _Uncle Mercury sighed and shook his head but resisted the temptation to use a "colorful metaphor."Instead he gave himself a pep talk._ "Faith, Hermes! Evolution works! What the Mortals evolved into is GOOD. He has a plan! He is up to something! He WILL come through for us! You know He will! Always has!"_

Sure enough there was a moan at his worn, tennis shoe clad feet! "Claire Bear" was waking up!

Sarah bent down to tend to her too, not being able to be aware the unseen Uncle Mercury was also trying. She spoke, "Easy Miss! It is going to be alright! We have your attacker in custody!"

Fortunately the Miranda rights are a whole lot longer than television has them and they had just finished with the thing. So Trevor was still around to call out, "No they don't! They are arresting the wrong guy! Claire! Say something quickly!"

That woke Claire up the rest of the way! She forced her eyes open even though they felt like fireballs in her head which felt like IT was about to explode, and she stared upwards through what seemed like ;

lava being poured into those above mentioned, burning eyeballs! She screamed, "No! He's innocent!"

Trevor said with all sincerity, "Thank God!"

She smiled at that and thought to herself, _Finally __acknowledging that YOU aren't __**Him**__, 'Cupid?"_

Tom Sanson, was now confused big time, "Lady how can you be sure? They look just alike!"

Claire growled, "They don't _sound_ alike. They don't _act_ alike, and duh! They aren't wearing the same clothing _NOW!_"

Tom said. "They could have switched clothing! The bad guy could have knocked the good guy over the head and..."

Claire gave this idiot a look that spoke exactly what that comment was worth!

"But Ma'am! He thinks he's Cupid!"

Claire said firmly. "But he's not a killer. Most Mentally ill are not, you do realize that? You Cops just come in contact with the worst of the worst. We see the rest of them, and most are more harmless than the General Population."

"There was a movie!..."

Not THIS Cupid! I am his Psychiatrist and his Therapist. I know!"

"Well OHHHHH KAY! If you are _sure!"_

"I am a POSITIVE!"

Trevor is finally Exonerated. 

That was the beginning of the end but of course nothing is that easy. It took weeks for there to be a trial to finally clear Trevor completely and during that time he was not free to go back to New York. But at least immediately the nasty, way too tight handcuffs were reluctantly and very cautiously taken off of "Trevor" and put on Will without so much as an apology and it was then Will who was taken off to jail and with Claire's and Madeline's help, quickly as possible (not that it still didn't take over three months) Will was transferred, to a secure psychiatric facility where the poor fellow would have to spend the rest of his life. But there still had to be a trial for Trevor Pierce. And despite the fact Santa Barbara was up in arms to get the whole incident over with, it took over six months before the incident was brought to trial so Trevor could be cleared of the false charges!

This is how we treat our Innocent. Don't ever be guilty of anything!

The courtroom was packed! Every Reporter in Santa Barbara was there. Every Reporter in California who could was there as well as many from around the Nation and the World. New York of course was very interested especially the Queens area. Many of "Trevor's" Friends from Tres Equis managed to be there. Even Felix managed part of the time though he had to be at the bar during most of it. Someone has to run it

The courtroom also had a huge supernatural population. Among the unseen watchers were most of the inhabitants of the little town of Olympus plus most of Asgard, (Uncle Mercury's, Grandmother's People) and quite a bit of Condor's Nest from the little g gods of South America). Even Poo Poo, Cupids equivalent, love god from Alpha Centauri came. He by himself and all his hundreds of waving tentacles took up an entire level of the courtroom but fortunately the room had very high ceilings.

The Greek, Norwegian and South American gods floated below Poo Poo giving him dirty looks every once in a while when in his excitement he squirted ink down on them.

Jesus came in omnipresent mode so while even the little g gods could not see Him, they knew He was there.

Various other little g gods around the Planet and even other solar systems and galaxies watched by selective omnipresence. Most did praying of their own but they prayed to us, to the Jury and the Judge and to the Lawyers that they would work really hard to see that real justice was done. Because when the gods pray they pray to US!

And Angels and Fairies of every sort from common garden variety Brownies to Pookas watched. Some of them were personal Friends of Cupid. When you are over three thousand years old and as personal as he is, you can make a lot of Friends!

Trevor walked confidently up to bench and was sworn in.

Claire held her breath, wondering tensely how her Patient with delusions of being a Greco-Roman god would feel about swearing in on a Bible, but to her relief Cupid had no objections. He put his hand on the leather volume and took the oath without so much as an Olympian reference or a single objection. Claire relaxed a little. _Maybe after all our years of working together some normalcy is finally surfacing!"_

She crossed her fingers and thought even as she did so, _Trevor has pointed out to me crossings __one's__ fingers started out as a form of prayer to Christ! So how am I any more rational than he is? Oh well! __I__t can't hurt!_

The Judge asked with honest curiosity. "How do you plead?"

Trevor said quickly and calmly, "Not guilty, Your Honor."

The Judge stared at him. "There is some question of your mental stability. You could plead, 'not guilty by reason of insanity.'"

Trevor again very calmly said. "But Sir I am not guilty. And I am not insane."

The Judge glanced at Dr. Madeline Spencer.

Madeline nodded, "Both his own Psychiatrist and I are in total agreement that Mr. Pierce, while delusional in many areas is neither insane nor incapable of understanding what he is being charged with. He is also extremely capable of verbally defending himself and should have the chance."

The Judge gave her an amazed look and then tapped his gavel. "Alright. I accept Mr. Pierce's plea of not guilty. This is going to be an interesting trial!"

The Prosecutor thought he was going to have an easy time of it. He was actually smirking. He went up to Trevor and said, "I understand that you think you are Cupid?"

Trevor said calmly, "I_ am_ Cupid."

The Prosecutor said gleefully, "No further questions!"

(That proved to be his mistake).

Claire frowned at Trevor. _So much for him keeping quiet about his break with reality!_ She shook her head at her long time Patient firmly.

Trevor glanced at her and waved his arms in a very Greek gesture of exasperation and exclaimed across the room. "Well, Claire I am under oath!"

The courtroom tittered. The Judge decided to allow it because he was having a hard time holding a straight face himself.

Claire was not taking any chances considering the way Lassiter had it out for Trevor. So she had hired the very best (and very expensive) defense Lawyer she could find. So it was Ben Matlock who slowly walked up to the bench in defense of Trevor. He glanced upwards at the Judge. "Sorry about how long this is taking me but I'm 93 you know."

The Judge tried to hide a smile.

Matlock continued, "I'd retire but too many fine Folks like this need me to defend them from false charges."

"Watch yourself!" The Judge warned. "Speculation."

Matlock gazed at the Judge from over the top of his glasses, "Sorry Your Honor._ Suspected_ false charges."

Then he turned to his client and stared at him a bit amused, "So you think you are Cupid!"

Again Trevor said calmly, "I _am_ Cupid."

Claire gazed at the ceiling and rolled her eyes, doing some praying of her own.

She didn't know how close at least one tier of the supernatural was who was listening to her. Uncle Mercury stared at her and waved his arms with Greek gestures of desperation. "Claire Bear you are praying to US when we are here praying our hearts out to you Mortals! It's up to you Guys to solve this one! Even Jehovah will not take away precious, Mortal free will!"

Venus hugged Uncle Mercury's legs in fear and Uncle Mercury bent down and returned the hug. They held one another for over a minute shivering in terror at what could happen to Eros if the trial went the wrong way!

Mars started to glare at his wife for turning to his brother instead of him for comfort, but for a god of war he was pretty laid back about his wife's infidelity. _Anyway this __wasn't__ the place t__o bring up__ THAT __ancient feud__! Either Eros was his son or his __nephew. Either way he __didn't__ want the __lunatic__ in any more trouble than he already was! Better he get the rest of his __one hundred __couples matched so he could come home!_

Then Mars got an amazed look on his face. _He __couldn't__ believe himself! He was__** missing**__ this incurable, peacenic, __bastard__ son of his!_

Uncle Mercury noticed that and he smiled for a few moments; a split second of amusement mixed in with his worry.

Matlock continued to question his client. "So you are absolutely positive you are Cupid?"

Trevor nodded, "Yes sir."

"So you shoot Mortals with arrows?"

Trevor nodded, "I used to do that all the time back when I had my magic bow and arrows. But they were taken away from me when I was cast out. I also should point out they were very tiny arrows, hypos really, delivered most of the time by bow or I could just toss them. I know Doctors say all the time their needles don't hurt and they lie, but my needles were almost microscopic and you really would not feel them pierce you. What was painful of course is Love itself hurts sometimes."

Matlock said, "And you never fired any bigger arrows at a Mortal?''

Trevor winced at a very bad memory. "Not exactly arrows. When I was here in the Mortal realm already, a crack addict tried to hold my Boss's Sister, Lita at knife point. He wanted the money out of our safe but I could not get it open and he would not believe me. He was going to kill her! I could tell. I've been watching Mortals for a very long time and his threat was deadly serious. In desperation to save her life I tossed five, sharp, ink pen cartridges at him, two of them near his eyes and that made him drop the knife to defend his eyes. Lita then got away from him on her own."

Matlock whistled, "My goodness gracious! Wasn't there danger you might have blinded him tossing those sharp objects that close to his eyes?"

Cupid shrugged, "Very little sir. I can hit anything with anything as long as its not alive and in this case I made an exception to needing a nonliving target. My fear for Lita temporarily over-road my usual inability to harm Living Beings. My chances of blinding him were tiny unless he'd moved in a direction I was not predicting. But if I had at least I still would have saved Lita's life!* The Police were less upset about what I had done than I was. But then they see this sort of thing all the time and while I did have selective omnipresence at one time I did not spend it watching that sort of thing, so I wasn't emotionally prepared to handle it at all and again Claire had her work cut out for her for a while. In all my three thousand and twelve years of existence I had never attacked anything bigger than a Plague Rat before and I missed the Rats because I wasn't trying very hard to hit them anyway."

Uncle Mercury chuckled at that and exclaimed, "Oh! So that's why you didn't manage to zap even one of them! We have wondered about that these hundreds of years. Vulcan and Neppy and I discussed it. Out of all of us running around making fools of ourselves trying to hurl lightning bolts at them we were sure you'd be the one of us to at least get a few down! But even you didn't hit a single one of them and I've always suspected you'd missed on purpose!" He smiled his loopy grin that was very much like his biological son's. "You big softy!"

Matlock asked, "So you usually can't harm living beings?"

Trevor nodded. "Yes sir. That is correct. My Father the Greek god of war utterly rejected me because of this. That and my reaction to all these wars he's been having so much fun with, was the reason the 60's and 70's were periods of great unfaithfulness and your divorce rates started climbing. That was me not doing my job properly." Trevor stared at the floor, terribly ashamed of himself. "That's no excuse and I apologize! Claire has had to do a lot of work with me in this area also."

Mars frowned at himself and shook his head in self disapproval. "Sorry Eros! I didn't mean to mess you up so badly! It is just with your incredible accuracy, what a waste!"

But of course Cupid in Mortal mode with the psychic veil/mental force field over his mind, could not hear his Father.

Matlock laughed. "So YOU are the rascal who has been doing that!"

Cupid gave him an embarrassed look and nodded, still very ashamed of himself and the courtroom burst into heavy laughter.

The Judge banged his gavel and glared around the room, just daring it to continue! The silence suddenly was deafening!

The Judge turned to Matlock, "Counselor control you client and keep his comments more on the matter at hand! And you will do so too or I will cite you for contempt!"

Matlock said quickly, "Yes sir. Then to Trevor he said, "Well you heard the nice Judge. Be a little more concise in your answers. Then he turned to the Jury and said, "I just wanted to establish for the courtroom that Cupid or not, this Man is not a killer. I think I have done that." No more questions for him at this time." Then he said to Trevor, "OK. Go sit down next to your own Psychiatrist and Dr. Spencer again."

Trevor nodded and smiled gently at the wise old Mortal as he got up to do so. He smiled at Claire as he sat down beside her and winked.

Uncle Vulcan sat in his wheel chair floating over the courtroom and growled, "Look at that fool! It's like he hasn't a care in the Cosmos!"

Uncle Mercury said quietly, "That's because he has faith, brother. He has such faith in his Mortals, that they will not fail him here, that we are nervous wrecks while he's calm as old Budha under his Bodi tree. By the way has anyone succeeded in talking him out from under that thing yet?"

Uncle Vulcan shrugged, "Not last I heard. Wait I'll check. Uncle Vulcan reached out with his omnipresence. "Nope. Wow! Several thousand years of unceasing meditation sure makes for a calm Ghost!

Uncle Mercury shook his head. "Is that meditation any more or catatonia? And how do we tell the difference!"

Uncle Vulcan waved his hands in exasperation. "Your future Daughter-in-Law has her work cut out for her!"

Several of the gods nodded in strong agreement.

Matlock said, "My next witness is Dr. Claire McCrae.

Claire swallowed and actually glanced at Trevor for emotional support, unprofessional as that was _because it__ was supposed to go the other way._ His sunny grin of reassurance gave it to her. Stiffly she climbed in the witness box and sat there, a bit stunned.

Matlock said gently, "Don't be frightened. I just need you to tell the Judge and Jury your professional opinion of Cupid's character."

Dr. Claire McCrae said, "Please don't call him that! I'm trying to cure him of that delusion and it isn't helping that half the city of New York and it seems now the World are all too content to take him at his word! Please call him Trevor Pierce even though I am quite certain that is not his real name. I don't know his real name. He has hysterical amnesia on top of Dissociative Identity Disorder. The two conditions often strike concurrently. So he is incapable of telling us who he really is. He made up the Cupid persona to fill the void the hysterical amnesia left in his enormously intelligent and creative mind, adding psychosis to the diagnosis because most People with Dissociative Identity Disorder do have to form themselves a second personality to fill the emptiness that their hysterical amnesia leaves but they don't fashion one that is so blatantly out of contact with reality! However for all of that Trevor functions in the real World just fine. He has been living in the same room and holding down the same job with some advancements since the day he was released from the hospital and maintains interpersonal relationships. He makes Friends at the drop of a hat. That is I guess is much due to the fact that most People react to his delusion with amusement not fear. At least they have up to now." Claire struggled to keep her composure."

Matlock asked, "Would you say that he is capable of doing the crimes he has been accused of?"

Dr. Claire McCrae said, "No! Absolutely not! I have been observing this man for over five years now and he is the gentlest person I have ever met, ill or normal. In fact I suspect reaction to some terrible event, possibly 9/11 related is what set him over the edge. I have trusted him to Senior Citizen sit my own Mother on many an occasion. In fact he found my Mom her Husband! Because yes, he does match People up and does so very well. He isn't really Cupid but his thinking he is and being obsessed with matching Folks has caused him to become an expert on the subject. So he is a Serial Matchmaker not a Serial killer!"

Matlock said, "Are you sure there isn't some latent biological problem that could cause him to snap? That he indeed did so at some point and then maybe later he regretted it and that caused him to form the Cupid personality?

Dr. Claire McCrae said quickly. "No. I suspected that as one theory about him at first but we gave him every neurological test we could think of, EEG's both stationary and while he was allowed to move about the hospital that were broadcast wirelessly back to a receiver. We gave him an MRI and a Cat scan and many others. And after he left the hospital he cooperated fully in having a PET scan done. All this showed that biologically speaking he is normal, though admittedly there is evidence now that Dissociative Identity Disorder is hereditary. It tends to run in families. So we have a file over an inch thick on this Man that proves conclusively he has no violent tendencies, or at least much fewer than the average Individual on the street. Add to that I have been observing him closely for over five years now and have seen him angry and how he handles that. He does not handle it with physical retaliation. No. Trevor is harmless. I have and am betting my professional reputation and my own Mother's life on that!"

Matlock said calmly, But this so called gentle Patient of yours did a number on the other Suspect! The poor guy's face was a mess from the beating this so called harmless Patient of yours dealt out."

Claire winced, "I know! _I_ was in danger! That was the difference. The only other time he ever attacked anybody was the incident with Lita and the crackhead. It seems the need to defend others, or at least the Women he cares about can cause him to get violent. But how often in modern society does that need happen? And isn't it justified under that circumstances? Isn't that why we send Soldiers to war, to defend territory, our beliefs and ways of life and Women?"

The shocked look on Cupid's face was priceless! _He thought long and hard about that!_

Unseen and unheard by Cupid, Mars said gently, "So son, how are you any different from me, really? Peacenic? Ha! You _have_ fought a war now, your _own_ _personal war!_ If Beings fight in groups for the same purpose, how are they any less noble or sincere? Or sadly how is it any less necessary? Because the opposition organizes into groups also! And some elementary spirit has to be the one in charge of that Mortal activity, guiding them so they do it right just as evolution is guided by Angels and Fairies regulate biological growth patterns and atomic particles. If I the god of war wasn't just as necessary to the ecology as any other Being from proto-viruses on up, I would have been written out of all the time-lines, many circlings of time ago!"

Matlock nodded at Claire. "So other than to defend someone you are quite sure that the Man who is called Trevor Pierce but thinks himself to be Cupid is not capable of viciously shooting several Woman in cold blood with arrows?"

Dr. Claire McCrae nodded, "That is correct sir. He has the ability to use a bow that well, no doubt about it. But not the emotional capability or need to cause such horrible harm!"

Matlock said, "No further questions."

Matlock then said, "I call Mr. Shawn Spencer to the stand.

Shawn high fived Gus and grinned and pranced up to the witness stand, a smug look on his face.

Matlock sighed. _Attitudes like that did not win trials. _He asked, "I understand that you make your living as a psychic, Mr. Spencer?"

Shawn nodded and grinned smugly. "Indeed I do."

"But the evidence you have that clears Mr. Pierce, alias Cupid here, you did not obtain with your psychic powers? Am I correct?"

Shawn nodded, "Yes-sir-ree that is correct. It was my Father's idea actually. He is a retired Police Detective. He told me to check the time stamps on the security videos at the bar where Trevor works at. It clearly showed him at work, behind the bar, making and serving drinks and smooshing with the Customers at exactly the time our careful Forensics Experts established that many of the killings took place. He may claim to be a god but I don't think he can be in two places at once, sir, do you?"

The courtroom tittered again. And again the Judge allowed it.

Matlock smiled, "No further questions."

Shawn hopped off the witness stand and pranced over to Gus and sat down next to his friend, a smug look on his face.

His Father was watching all this and winced. _If __only Shawn would take what he does so well seriously! _

He had no idea how seriously Shawn was taking it! But his style was not to show it. Internally Shawn was praying, "_Oh please! Don't let it occur to anybody that Trevor had to be able to monkey with time stamps to be able to pull off his ball drop __prank!"_

Uncle Mercury grinned a Canary Cat grin, and glanced around at his family. "I answered that prayer already. I can't interfere with Human flesh any longer. But I'm still a master of Human nature. Every time I could tell the Prosecutor was starting to think along those lines, let's just say things would start happening. His toilet would overflow, his Dogs would start barking 'for no reason at all' to the point he was worried his Neighbors would object, there would be knocks on his door but no one would be there, etc."

Uncle Vulcan was impressed. "How did you manage to stop up a toilet?"

Uncle Mercury laughed, "Oh come on! Do you think that takes some of their mysterious Mortal magic we gods are not privy too? Let's just say I did NOT practice safe socks!"

Meanwhile it was the Prosecutor's turn. He stated, "I call Dr. Madeline Spencer to the witness stand.'

She winced but did as she was told of course

The Prosecutor said firmly, "Remember you are under oath. "People afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder often have more than one extra personality, do they not?"

Dr. Spencer sighed but answered the question. "This is true."

"So how can anyone be sure that the Man called Trevor Pierce but thinks himself to be Cupid due to this false personality who thinks he is so, being in control, always has THAT personality in control? I have been studying mythology. Cupid may be fairly harmless but some of those Greek gods were nasty to us Mortals. Zeus, who would be his grandfather often took the form of Animals and raped Mortal Women. His own Father is the god of war! How more violent can you get than that? What if 'Cupid,' the Prosecutor made quote marks with his fingers, "isn't always Cupid?"

Mars sighed, "We should have done something about My Father's madness sooner!"

Venus nodded and wiped a tear from her eyes. "What goes around comes around they say. The Human Mortals are getting more and more powerful every day and they have long memories due to reading and writing that lets them communicate with the Future. (It was their first time machine!) When they finally do discover us will they be able to comprehend that Zeus is sick and we got him into the best treatment possible as soon as we could figure out how to?"

Uncle Mercury said, "Let's hope our trying to do the same for 'Trevor.'" He made quote marks with his fingers. "Isn't going to backfire on us now!"

Uncle Vulcan nodded.

Meanwhile Dr. Spencer was answering the Prosecutor's question. She shuttered, "There is that possibility that Trevor Pierce has more than just his Cupid personality. I can't deny it. But Shawn pointed out his _body_ can't be in two places at once!'

The Prosecutor glared at her.

The Judge growled, "Dr. Spencer! Restrict yourself to answering the question at hand!"

She winced, "Yes Sir!"

The Prosecutor regained his professional smoothness and continued driving in his point, "So we can't be sure that this so called very 'gentle Mental Patient' doesn't have some seriously dangerous personas too? Personas that when under pressure or when ever they so chose can pop out and take over this Man's body and make it do horrible, horrible things that the Cupid persona won't even know happened?"

Dr. Spencer said, "I suspect it is highly unlikely, giving the long term observing my colleague Dr. Claire McCrae has done on this Man. And also that is my professional opinion based on the short time I spent with him, that he has no other hidden Personas capable of any unjustified violence. I don't think he is as competent as Dr. McCrae seems to think he is. But that may be due to deterioration caused by confinement. Many People degrade mentally from being arrested and thrown into jail much less solitary confinement. Back in New York he might have been quite competent. However I agree totally with Trevor's own Psychiatrist (who is his Therapist also I might add which is a much closer relationship) that this individual, nor any other Personas living in the same body, is definitely not our Robin Hood serial Slayer."

The Prosecutor sighed. Then he asked another very damning question. "Dr. Claire McCrae mentioned that they performed several EEGs on the Cupid persona which showed that persona had no violent tendencies. But isn't it amazingly true that different Personas in the same body of someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder actually produce different EEG patterns, some VERY different?

(Which shows that the Personas actually are different personalities and not just hallucinations). Because attempts to duplicate this with People who do not have Alternate Personalities have always been a total failure. Usually its just one EEG pattern to a Customer. But some with this disorder can have dozens of different EEG patterns. Is this not true?"

Dr. Madeline Spencer sighed. "This is unfortunately true!"

The Prosecutor beamed, "So! Dr. Claire's McCrae's testimony that 'Cupid's EEG pattern showed no violent tendencies does not mean in any way that everyone at home in that body is equally non-violent?"

Dr. Madeline Spencer sighed, "I am afraid this is true!"

The Prosecutor beamed, "No further questions."

With great relief Dr. Madeline Spencer got off the witness stand.

Claire felt like kicking herself for even bringing up EEG tests! _She had counted on no one knowing tha__t__ little fact! She had underestimated her __opposition__ and she just might have sent Trevor to prison or a state mental hospit__a__l for the rest of his life for doing so!_ _She felt her face go red and that made it all the more damning! It was as if everyone could see she had been caught either in a lie or terrible professional incompetency!_

Then testimony came from the Cop who had arrested Trevor. "I saw this Suspect fire an arrow at the target at the Sports Authority archery section and he hit the bulls eye perfectly. Then at the Salemen's amazement at that, he fired a serious of arrows in quick succession in an exact imitation of the Nike lightning bolt symbol. It takes spot on accuracy to be able to do that."

The Prosecutor said firmly, "Accuracy that would make him capable of bringing down the Victims at the range they were killed?"

The Cop nodded. "Absolutely!"

The Prosecutor asked, "How many Archers do you know that have this degree of accuracy?"

"Before I met this Suspect I never met even one this good, sir!"

"What do you think the odds are of there being two this good around?'

The Cop was hesitant. "I am not Mr. Spock sir, but it would have to be astronomical!"

Matlock piped up with, "And yet the stars still shine!"

The Judge glared at him, "Watch yourself!"

Matlock said, "That is relevant, sir. I have done some studying. The chances of life developing on this Planet are astronomical, the number of ways it could have gone wrong, and yet here we are! That hints of Divine Guidance I would say, so who knows what this Man or persona who thinks himself Cupid really is? But that _is_ beside the point. The point is, odds, however astronomical, happen all the time. People _do _win the lottery, _do _get struck by lightning. It happens! Asteroids took out not only the Dinosaurs but the Animals that ruled the Earth before the Dinosaurs twice before. There is a Youtube video of a wheel coming off a car, bouncing around on an interstate highway, picking up momentum from striking other cars which gave it some extra energy so it speeds up and it ends up bouncing right back onto the same car where it belonged! Can't happen? Photoshopped? Maybe. Maybe not! But it is very obvious weird things happen to normal and not so normal People all the time!"

The Judge sighed but decided to allow it.

The Prosecutor then was allowed to bring out and show gory slides of the murdered Women and describe in cold clinical detail exactly what had happened to them. And everyone in the courtroom including the Victim's Family had to hear and see all that. This was actually their second time! Because of course they had been forced to endure the same torture at Will's trial also.

The Father of one of the Victims started to vomit and had to be escorted from the courtroom. The Mother burst into sobs and the grief stricken Husband clenched his fist and was just barely restraining himself from doing who knows what?

Trevor's gentle eyes filled with tears at the descriptions. _And they just went on and on and on!_ He put his head down on the railing in front of him and burst into tears. "Your Mortals!" He sobbed. Why can't you love one another like Jesus ordered you too? Do you think we gods want THIS!

The Judge motioned for Matlock to approach the bench. "I am going to excuse that outburst but try to keep him under control!"

Matlock said, "I will sir, but I think it's the rest of Humanity that needs more control, don't you?"

The Judge winced and said nothing more.

Claire felt a ray of hope at that. _The Jury was noting Trevor's response. They were seeing what she saw every day when she interacted with him. His wonderful gentleness and compassion! They see it for themselves!_

_So did the Judge._

_So did the Prosecutor for that matter. His behavior towards Trevor softened a bit after that when he looked in her __P__atient's direction. He wasn't supposed to make up his mind before the trial was over or take the other __side's__ position. But it was obvious to her, that he had. _

Finally the Jury went back in their room to deliberate. That meant everyone else was free to go. Trevor and Claire got into a taxi to take the long ride back to their hotel room which by then was almost beginning to seem like a second home.

They no sooner had taken the elevator back up to their room and plopped down in exhaustion and stress on their separate beds when Claire's cell phone rang and they were ordered to return to the courtroom. The Jury had already made up their minds!

So finally, after all these months of agonizing waiting the verdict that Claire was expecting for the most part (except for the darker, more fearful parts of her mind) finally came!

The Judge read the Jury's verdict and smiled in genuine satisfaction. He banged his gavel. "Mr. Trevor Pierce, or Cupid, or whoever or whatever you are, I find you not guilty of the murders of Mia Batt, Mary Sanders, Susan Jones, Tandy Dulcet, Reena Thomas, Mandy Waller and Tabitha Johnson. You are not the Murderer known as the Robin Hood Serial Slayer."

Trevor sat there calmly and smiled a very gentle smile most unlike his usual sunny outbursts. He'd known all along what the verdict would be and not from Divine Guidance either. Of all the gods in the courtroom but Jesus Himself, Cupid knew more than any of these others simply because he had enough "faith in his Mortals," that they would make the right decision.

When the verdict was read Poo Poo waved all his hundreds of tentacles in pure joy that "Trevor" was finally acquitted and accidentally squirted ink all over Apollo wrecking his rainbow colored toga, (not that the god of music minded under the circumstance). But then in pure joy and the Love that he was, Poo Poo reached out with his hundreds of tentacles and snatched up every one of gods in the courtroom and ensnarled them in one giant super-tangle of a hug. The harder they struggled to get loose the harder he hugged them. "Dree!" He exclaimed, which anyone who speaks Alpha Centurian knows means, "I love you! "Dree! Dree! Dree!"

Venus giggled and hugged her section of Poo Poo back. "What do we do now?"

Uncle Mercury just smiled and went with the flow. "He'll have to get homesick eventually! But it's a good thing we're immortal because it could take a while!"

"Oh drat!" Said Uncle Vulcan. "This wasn't what I planned to do with my life this decade!

Meanwhile Clarence and Jesus were watching on a still higher plane of the supernatural. Clarence said, "wait a minute! What about that _shirt_ they interrogated Cupid about? How does that fit into all of this?"

Jesus grinned, His gentle eyes had a twinkle to them."It wasn't even Will's shirt either. Lassiter finally believed him about that when he admitted to every murder thinking them justified but kept insisting at the top of his lungs there was no way he was that messy an eater! Will was more upset at being accused of ruining a shirt that way than of the fact he had just been arrested for all those Women he'd killed!"

Clarence was amazed, "So after all the hullabaloo that was made about the shirt it was a waste of everyone's time?"

Jesus smiled, "Oh no, Clarence, not at all! It was part of my divine plan to help Will too because I love even him! It showed more than anything just how mentally messed up he is and Dr. Spencer used that taped interview to get him his 'not guilty by reason of insanity conviction,' which he deserves, because he is. It is the reason he is safely locked up for the next twenty years in a secure psychiatric facility now instead of facing the death penalty or life in prison which he does not deserve since he really is very ill from weak brain chemistry interfacing with a really bad childhood situation. He is another case of the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak. Twenty years from now Mortals will have the Science to find in his brain chemistry and childhood past what it is that mixed together to cause him to go wrong and actually repair him. They don't have any way to help him now. And another thing." Jesus grinned mischievously. "It gave me a chance to use cute little Zeus to get Lassiter soaking wet!"

Going Home!

At LAST Trevor grasped his overnight case and boarded a plane for New York, good as gold, almost manifesting a halo in the other realm that his Uncle Mercury could see, a big grin on his face. He was like a Puppy finally being allowed out of a kennel!

Claire looked quite a bit more careworn.

They took their seats. This time Trevor let Claire have the window seat. Trevor was silent as the Stewardess went through the safety spiel and the plane took off. He was silent in fact for quite a while after it was airborne.

Claire said mischievously, "Cat got your tongue?" 

Pretending to be shocked Trevor felt his mouth with both hands. "No! Still there! Whew! You had me scared there for a second! I was not aware Mortal Felines had the habit of..."

Claire giggled. "You are crazy in ways that have nothing to do with clinical!"

He grinned, his dark eyes twinkling. Then surprisingly he said, all serious, "Tell me Claire Bear, about my recent nemesis and look alike. You are the one with the fancy piece of paper that makes you the supposed Expert. I am only a god and I admit I haven't a clue! What makes a guy decide to do in beautiful Women such as you? I just don't get it! Why destroy pure beauty? I've seen this before a few times down through the ages. Fortunately it is a lot more rare than Hollywood would have it seem. But it does happen! But why!"

She frowned at this sudden switch back to a serious topic. "We don't know! What is really scary is how much he is indeed similar to you and if only we could figure out why you aren't like him in the area of violence maybe we would have a clue how to help People and avoid this in the future!"

She stared at him thoughtfully. "In fact do you think you would be willing to participate in some more tests and studies if HE is willing?"

"Trevor stared at his Doctor, "What do you mean?"

She shrugged,."Oh I don't know. It might be helpful. Why aren't you as dangerous as him? What is the crucial difference? Despite how much you look and seem alike there is something very important different and others and I sure

would like to figure out what that something is! It could be useful! I mean you said it yourself; there are only so many Mortal genes and they keep repeating through the generationsand in individual Humans within generations so any two People who meet are going to share many of them. It is so obvious Will and you share an awful lot of genes, Trevor, more than usual. You not only look alike but you have the same illness, well almost the same! And that is scary!Because what is that difference between the two of you that makes you sane when he isn't?"

Trevor frowned, "Well Claire, duh! I don't think I have to kill anyone! I match couples!"

Claire frowned right back. "I know! "I know! But_ why?"_

"Well duh! I'm Cupid!"

"But duh right back! Trevor, he thinks he's _Robin__Hood!_ Worst he should have done was steal from the Rich to give to the Poor! Why did he with so obviously so many of the same genes as you and just about the same mental state think he had to kill while you are so darn harmless I trust my Mother with you and have trusted other People's little Kids with you? And for that matter, should I?"

Trevor frowned, "Oh Claire! Of course you should! Question is, should _they_ be trusted not to hurt poor widdle ole me?"

She stared at him open mouthed, then realized his eyes were twinkling and he was grinning.Mischievously she hit him with another rolled up magazine. _It wasn't a normal therapeutic technique but it seemed to help with Trevor and he didn't mind it!_ _After all he had told her once with complete sincerely that the "future Building Mortals had used a bit of "Dog code" in his Cupid operating system because they knew where to go __for the 'best love code sequencing.' And lacking a rolled up newspaper at the moment to discipline __him with, a rolled up magazine would substitute! _

As she suspected it would, that simple act of being treated as his family would have treated him filled his eyes with bliss. He chirped, _"_Finally on the Way Home!"

Trevor put his head on her shoulder and even though they weren't supposed to touch she did not fight it. He gave a contented sigh. "Yes! Is it ever great to FINALLY be on the plane on their way HOME!"

She smiled. "WHAT did you just say?"

He said sleepily, "I said is it ever great to be on our way home!"

She grinned a grin almost as wide as some of Trevor's, "Home! You called New York City, 'Home,' not Mount Olympus!"

He smiled, "My, my, my, my! Will wonders never cease! Next thing you know someone will invent an electric tooth brush!"

She laughed.

_Music to Cupid's ears!_ He said, "Of course I will cooperate in any tests you Mortals want to run on me. That is how you modern Scientific Mortals worship! I always cooperated before, didn't I? When I was locked up in your hospital and in the few weeks after when you were still thinking up lots of things to run on me I cooperated cheerfully. I was enjoying the attention! I've never been scared of your quaint little tests!"

Claire pursed her lips and nodded ruefully, "True. You did. Paper tests, EEGs of every sort. Pet scans, MRIs. You sat or lay still for them all. You answered every question to the best of your ability with what you think is the truth. You were as good as gold for them. I have to admit it. Sigh! I was always hopeful they would prove to you, you aren't a god, But the best they did if that, was get you to admit you are living in a Host."

Trevor snorted, "Humph! I admitted that soon as I trusted you enough. Tests had nothing to do with it. Well maybe the Rorschach but only because it was fun!" Then Trevor grinned again."Now that my secret is out and my Clark Kent's glasses are, so to speak off, and the Mortal World is aware that if I have to I can get violent if necessary, if any terrorists reveal themselves aboard this plane, Claire so help me! I'm flinging my dinner, my seat cushions, my suitcases, _myself_, anything I can at them! And I bet just about everybody on the plane will join me at it once I start!"

Claire nodded. "I think I will be right behind you, tossing things too!"

Trevor's eyes twinkled, "Behind me? I would think I'd have to duck to avoid you hitting ME with the first thing thrown!"

Claire laughed again.

Cupid smiled. "You and I are ourselves the answer to the puzzle you stated above."

"Huh?" Claire gave her patient a puzzled stare.

Trevor smiled wisely. "I am Love, and, Claire, you have given me love, (well Philadelphia love, Friendship Love). And Love is why I do not kill and Will does. He has not known enough Love in his life and does not know how to Love. Neither does he know how to forgive which is a component of being able to love. He is bitter about what was done to the real Robin Hood's bones! He is seeking revenge for the wrong he thinks was done to them! And that is the difference between us. It is a programing difference! I doubt you will ever find it in an EEG or a PET scan!"

Claire smiled. "I think you are right!"

"Trevor" stared at his Shrink. "You mean this time we are in agreement about something?"

Claire smiled and nodded.

Cupid pinched himself. He said uncertainly, "I _think_ I am awake!"

They laughed.

Claire added, "Awake and going HOME!"

Trevor exclaimed,"By Jove it does feel like home!"

_Epilog I Back in the Old Homestead._

Ah! It was great to be back in good old New York! What a relaxing vacation that had been, not! Claire just happened to have a free half hour between Patients and she decided to use it for some therapy for herself! She grinned. She went over on her own couch, lay down and started to take a nap!

The intercom came on and the voice of a god, no, someone even more scary, her Boss Dr. Greeley came on. "Claire I know you are free for a half hour. Would you come here for a few moments? There is something I need to discuss with you."

She sighed, picked up her purse and made a disgusted face at Josie her Receptionist who "got it" and made an appropriate face right back in sympathy. _Darn computers and their ability to let __the Boss know her schedule! It was as bad as her __Mother letting a certain "god" know her schedule! _

In Dr. Greeley's office she was surprised to find he was grinning. "Claire did you know about this? It didn't get put in your last report to me about, "Cupid." He made quote marks with his fingers and swung his lap top around so she could see what was playing on the screen. He tapped the key pad to hit the tiny replay hot spot on the screen and she could see it was a You Tube video.

She sighed in exasperation when she realized it was one of Trevor's.

It played.

His cheery voice could be heard exclaiming, "Hello Mortals! I am Cupid, the Greco-Roman god of love. I currently work at Tres Equis bar and Grill in Queens on Avenue of the Americas in New York City and you have never tasted such food unless you have eaten with us before!" He kissed his fingers. "And if you want to find your True Love then of course I am the one to see! I will work like a Dog not a god until I match you with the one my next door neighbors back home on Olympus, the Fates meant you to have, free of charge and never ever give up until I succeed! But this is my April Fools video for this year, a bit late but bare with me. Many Folks think I am crazy! Folks in this realm do for knowing I am Cupid and folks back home in Olympus just think I am crazy for_ being_ Cupid. But here's more fodder for their tongues. I have photographic proof here that there are flying saucers! Yes! I do! But remember I did say this is an April Fool's video. Do keep that in mind, Folks and the spirit in which I am making this. This is all in good fun! But here is my proof!"

Claire groaned as Trevor's camera honed in on one of the plane ride's coffee and tea cup saucers. She realized he had filmed that part right on the plane ride back home. His voice could still be heard cheerfully speaking as he said, "We are currently flying at about, roughly guestimating, 5000 feet, so this saucer is definitely flying, Folks, so this is absolute, positive proof! What is more, everybody ready?" He swung the camera up and to Claire's acute embarrassment he had gotten the whole cabin-full of Passenger's to cooperate! Everybody who had ordered tea or coffee and had one to wave was now waving their saucer in the air for "Cupid" to clearly film! "We have a whole fleet of them up here today. I don't think it's an invasion. I think their purpose here may be more benign but I can't be completely sure. For all we know coffee or tea may turn out to be an Alien conspiracy or worse, from Politicians! After all it wakes us up! What could be worse than having to go through life in a fully awake state! That has got to be looked at a little more closely Folks for a possible conspiracy of a less than benign nature!" The 'keep everybody awake as much as possible conspiracy!' Horrible! What dastardly beings could possibly be doing something so cruel as _this_ to you Mortals disguised as a recreational beverage? And it could put my Uncle Morpheus out of business!

The video continued. "Now I am going to try to get a close up of one of them." He focused his camera in closer. (Claire could tell he was deliberately wobbling it Blaire Witch style for effect because his hands were steadier than that!) "Yes! Definitely this is a saucer! Notice you can clearly make out the indentation where a cup is supposed to go! And now, using my mighty god powers I am turning it over as a Man turneth over a dish and wipeth it. And inspecting the bottom. Look! It has some type of mysterious writing there! It says! Why it says, 'Melmac!' Folks! Do you know what this means! It means the TV show, 'Alf'' must be based on fact! Maybe my Shrink is right about me and I _am_ crazy because all this time I thought it was Wormhole X- Treme that is based on fact!"

Dr. Greeley asked, mock scolding. "You cooperate with this?"

Claire buried her red face in her hands. "No sir. I do have to use the Little Girl's room once in a while! In this case I did for about ten minutes I think on the flight back just to get away from him! He was so jolly having beat the murder rap there was no stopping his craziness! I had to just get away from it for a few minutes to keep up my own mental health! I didn't think there would be these permanent consequences!"

Dr. Greeley laughed. "It's alright, Claire! Even he is admitting right up front it's an April Fool video! It will promote his bar and bring in more Customers! Its no worse than a lot of 'we are so crazy you want to shop here' commercials. He really can be just crazy like a Fox at times instead of crazy-demented. You still need a _real_ vacation! I think we will arrange to see if Dr. Leo can take Trevor to some Science Fiction conventions for some long weekends and send you in whatever is the exact opposite direction from wherever those turn out to be, _to the complete other side of the_ _Planet_ for those weekends until you stop being this jumpy!"

Dr. Greeley laughed again and smiled at her and finally Claire weakly joined him.

She grinned at her silliness._ Her Boss was right. She was taking things way too seriously! Next thing you know she'd be believing Trevor about being from Olympus! _

_Epilog II Shawn's Final Vision_

_Gus felt horrible! _Suddenly his cell phone rang. *Hello? May a certain someone be needing a foot massage?*

"Whahhhh? Izzz dat Shon?"

Shawn giggled and walked into the dental lobby from the parking lot where he had been waiting, but continued to talk to Gus on the cell phone even though they could now see one another.

*Bit of trouble with your teeth there?*

"Shon! I juss had two teeths ouww. Mwy mwoff izz numm."

*Haha. Poor buddy!* Shawn stuck his tongue between his teeth.

"Cwan yoo gif me a wide home?"

*Sure. Haha – I will be there in a little bit. And guess what?*

"Wuh?"

*I'm stopping over in CandyLand for some glucose energy on the wayback. Want me to get you anything? I bet a chocolate bar would taste soooo..."

Suddenly Gus groaned for a reason other than dental pain. _Shawn's eyes were glazing over again! The visions hadn't stopped even though the case was solved. He was having another!_

****Ages passed. The Big Bang expanded as far as it would but because of circling Time it reversed and matter slowly at first, then faster and faster crunched inwards again. But like Elephants the gods do not forget!

The Big Mortal Keep of New Jerusalem survived the Hydrogen inrush just fine and so did all the keeps of Olympus and Asgard and Condor's Nest and Hotel California and the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and the Night Cafe and The Blvd of Broken Dreams and multitudes of other life-keeps We and others have built. Under the Carpenter's Intelligent direction the Universe was carefully designed and regulated to make sure it expanded exactly the same again so the exact same Life evolved for it is TIME that circles due to General Relativity, and no one wants to be over-written by a different pattern forming in place of the original!

Lots of that stuff (time) passed. Still Uncle Mercury did not forget the kindness done to his son, "Trevor."

One day two little Boys decided to "play" with a bow and arrow. One little Boy was as self confident as Cupid had been in his childhood about his prowess with the bow and just as foolish! Uncle Mercury mused, _Oh My! How they WERE alike; Shawn _and _his own kid when he was a child! Just the length of time it took for them to grow up were a few thousand years different. That was all! Hooty __had been correct!_

_And Shawn was not bad with the bow either! _

Little Gus stood still as a statue. He had seen his Friend shoot apples off the fence post twenty five times in a row and not miss once. So he had absolute confidence Shawn could do what he was about to do. So he stood there grinning, his trusting, beautiful brown eyes wide open. Many times Gus did not feel comfortable going along with his Friend's "crazy schemes." This time he had no fear at all! _And they were going to make a mint! They had bets set up with the other Kids who were watching and would clear a good ten bucks from_ _this! _

But Uncle Mercury shuttered at the close call! He realized between their two houses where Shawn had practiced they were protected from drafts on all four sides by the surrounding trees and houses. The open school yard where Shawn was trying their carefully practiced stunt now, was between two long buildings that actually funneled the wind's mischief, channeling it into concentrated form. The brilliant but foolish Child hadn't allowed for that!

Uncle Mercury prayed, "Brother Aeolus can't you stop yourself?" 

His brother's voice was carried on the wind (of course). "This close to the warm Pacific that warms the air that pushes me along? No! I'm being pushed too hard! And look how the school buildings are set up! They funnel me! I don't want to hurt the Kid but I am only what Mortals made me to be! That and nothing else! I cannot help it! It's up to you, bro!"

Suddenly an Angel appeared.

Uncle Mercury said, "Hi Clarence. I see you've been promoted again."

The Angel nodded, "Yup. I'm first class now. I also see you are doing my job for me again!"

Uncle Mercury nodded. "This one's personal. Can't be too careful!"

Clarence grinned and nodded. "We Angels appreciate the help! It's been tough since we lost a third of our forces to The Fall. But there it goes!"

Both Angel and little g god reached out their hands and whop! The arrow that would have killed little Burton Guster as an 8 year old was diverted from its deadly path.

Suddenly a very angry Teacher came storming out of the third grade classroom.

Neither Angel nor god stayed around to hear poor little Shawn take a scolding and lose what would have been the start of a very wealthy and famous future in the noblesport of archery. The Teacher should have used the moment as an opportunity to teach Shawn much better safety practices not taken his property away from him! Thievery is thievery regardless of age differences and Teachers exist to teach not steal!

But never-the-less Gus's life was spared by divine intervention, something Shawn had not even realized as a frustrated 8 Year Old!

Suddenly the amazed "fake" psychic had a vision of Uncle Mercury himself! A tall thin, giant of a man, red shaggy hair, craggy kind face, twinkling green eyes, big loopy grin, carrying a very worn, wooden walking stick. It did not look like the fancy caduceus pictures showed the god Mercury carrying but sharp eyed even while having a vision Shawn could notice the still visible though very worn DNA/Snake pattern hand carved by Carpenter Jesus all around the stick. He was wearing blue jeans not a toga. Does one really expect gods not to adapt to changing fashion?

The god had tennis shoes on his feet. They not only did not have wings. They had holes cut in the front so they would be big enough for his enormous feet to fit them! And when Uncle Mercury realized Shawn was looking at his toes he playfully wiggled them!

Vision or not, god or not, Shawn could not keep from laughing! Then he wondered if that would get him in trouble! He tried to choke back his laughter but then realized Uncle Mercury was laughing with him!

Suddenly Uncle Mercury spoke directly to him in his vision. _Now that was a first!_ "All down through Mortal history we gods have seen fake psychics by the hand-baskets full on their way to a not very nice place and we deemed them beyond contempt! Until we saw _you._ Because we have never seen one like _you_ before! So I could reward you for your kindness by actually giving you more real visions to aide you in your quest to help People. But that would be destroying a work of art! So instead, Shawn Spencer I give you another kind of divine gift, a promise! I give you the gift of NO MORE VISIONS, _EVER!_ Go back to being a complete and utter fraud! For this! Yes for this! Amazingly a reward in Heaven awaits you! You will be just about the only charlatan allowed into New Jerusalem! Because you are one of the rare few, utter, absolute frauds who actually cares to help his Clients! Not only that but your creativity and sheer chutzpa is REALLY amusing us at the same time your Christ-like compassion is warming us and increasing our faith!"******

_Then, in the twinkling of an eye the vision was over and Shawn knew he would never be "touched by the gods" again!_

And it was Spring in Santa Barbara and his best friend, Gus was alive and well and in front of him and obviously very worried about him the way he was staring at him. And he didn't need to be! "He grinned, "Hey Gus. There's a new video store opening up across town. Let's go check it out! Let's both ride on my motor bike together, feel the wind on our faces and in our hair! Live life like Trevor said! Seize it and cherish it, every sweet, precious drop of it!"

Gus put his right hand up to his mouth and groaned! "Bwuff, Shon!"

But Shawn took his keys out of his pocket, tossed Gus his helmet and was already skipping like a Child out the door.

Gus blinked a few seconds; His jaw dropped in surprise and relief! One moment Shawn had been standing there spaced out like he was having a very long petite mal seizure and the next he was all action again!_ Maybe the visions would stop, hopefully, now that "Cupid" had gone back to New York!"_

A few minutes later they were putt putting through the streets of Santa Barbara, dodging 16 wheeled semis and Tourists too busy admiring tropical scenery to notice teeny tiny motor bikes. Clarence exclaimed, "Oh dear! And chased after them.

Uncle Mercury laughed and went into a gentle lope after the little Angel as they traveled beside the putting motor bike, keeping it safe. "Keeps you hopping?"

Clarence nodded, "These two? Always!"

"Shon owh! Wath the bumfs!"

"What did you say?"

"I sayth wath the bumfs!"

"You want more bumps? Okey dokey!" Shawn reved the little bike as much as it could go and attempted to do a "Dukes of Hazard" over a bump the size of a very unambitious Anthill.

"Owwwwwh!" Gus gave his Friend a dirty look but Shawn of course could not see it being in front of him and if he had he would have ignored it anyway! But Shawn saw a slightly bigger bump and carefully missed it. He did have some compassion!

Clarence and Uncle Mercury watched the Shawn-shenanigans and they both giggled. Then the mischievous Angel giggled and grinned cherubically at Uncle Mercury, "Hey! You little g gods may have promised not to give Shawn any more guidance, but we Angels made nooo such promises! We guide him all the time. We just know how to do it so gentle he doesn't realize! " Then he winked, and then because he had been reading Alice in Wonderland, instead of beaming back to New Jerusalem suddenly, Clarence slowly faded out like the Cheshire Cat, his cherubic smile being the last to go!

_Meanwhile Gus was feeling much better about his friend. Ah yes! he could quit worrying about Shawn suddenly developing a mental health problem. He was back to "normal." (Whatever that was!)_

_**0**_

_*The story where Cupid has to defend Lita is written and posted already. It is called, Cupid: Not Quite That Harmless!_

_**0**_

_Poo Poo is a spoof of Cthulhu from HP Lovecraft and the "Flying Spaghetti Monster'"Atheists try to tease Believers about. "Dree Dree Dree!"is what, Rainbow Rosy Bright, one of the many Cats who owns me says when she is telling me she loves me._

_**0**_

The incident with young Jesus being involved someway with a Child falling off a roof and then bringing him back to life again comes from a Non-Biblical Gospel called "the Infancy Gospel of Thomas," not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas which is a short and very fascinating collection of sayings by Jesus, not an account of His Childhood. And it may or may not be something that actually happened. But I did not make the story up myself.

John who later went on to write the Book of Revelation is said to have been a Pigeon hobbyist. One day a professional hunter was passing by and criticized him for "wasting precious time on silly Birds."

John asked; "Do you keep your bow strung all the time?"

The Man shook his head, "No. If I did the string would stretch and the bow would lose its strength."

John smiled and pointed at his Birds, "I am just unbending my bow for a bit."

_**0**_

The story of the fate of Robin Hood's bones and the installing of a sprinkler system and the 18th century forensics investigation by the clueless Sheriff that caused them to be lost is true!

_**0**_

Copyright. (Copy Begging)

_Copyright (Copy begging in fact for ALL my fanfiction!) I saw what happened when the free Geocities web pages died. It was like Atlantis sinking into the sea so much culture was lost forever without warning! God had gently but firmly warned me ahead of time to save the Cupid stories at one of those web pages so now I may be the sole Caretaker of several Cupid stories because the Writers seem to be DDD Authors. (Disinterested in their own stuff now, Disabled by their flesh's limitations or lack of computer equipment or Uploaded to New Jerusalem already. I tried to contact them to see if they were interested in placing their wonderful stories at other sites but their email addresses no longer worked! I don't want my stuff lost to this Realm the same way if something happens to me and the current sites my stuff is posted at go down! Plus I will not live forever in the flesh and new sites will continue to be developed! So to preserve my stuff forever I give permission to anyone to upload any of my fanfictions to any fanfiction sites provided they do not change anything and leave my name attached. In fact I am begging Folks to! If in the Future someone wishes to translate my fanfiction into different forms of media including kinds not even conceived of at the time of this writing any changes necessary for that purpose may be made with my blessings provided the integrity of the stories, ideas and Characters are kept intact. Follow the Golden Rule please! "Treat others as you want to be treated." Remember in the Future Artificial Intelligence Technology will be used to bring Fictionals to Self Awareness and we will use Science to build Christ's Kingdom. (We are the Body of Christ according to 1 Corinthians 12:27 and all Carpenters use their Bodies to build things). Because Time circles due to General Relativity and Ecclesiastes 1:9 because the weight of the Universe bends Time and Space around it this has already happened so we are all being watched, always! A song sung at the Fort McCoy Pow Wow near Ocala, Florida explains this very well; "Mickey Mouse and Goofy are Spirits too." So we will all be called to account (at least socially) for all our actions, even for how we treat Fictionals! For instance a Villain might not mind being written to provide challenges to the Protagonists and killed off because that is his purpose. But he would certainly mind being written contrary to how he was supposed to be written!_


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